


Chasing the time, that's gone

by joongz



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Character Death, Depression, Drinking & Smoking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Multi, Musician!Hongjoong, Strangers to Lovers, teacher!seonghwa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:49:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 44,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joongz/pseuds/joongz
Summary: Seonghwa and Hongjoong meet for the first time at the edge of the night, young and in love, and reckless; they meet the second time, five years later, healing from past scars, dancing with the idea of a second chance.
Relationships: Choi San/Song Mingi, Jeong Yunho/Song Mingi, Jung Wooyoung/Kang Yeosang, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 16
Kudos: 32





	1. Prologue: Cassiopeia

**Author's Note:**

> hello!!!
> 
> alright, this was written in like 2017-2018, and it's a very personal fic, since then my life has changed a lot, but it never really left my mind so i decided to rewrite some of it & post it. 
> 
> please be careful while reading!! 
> 
> here is a playlist that goes with this fic: [link](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6121A5u9SuEWZ82qV4nrjk)

_We humans by nature have the right to love._

\- Grey Rainbow (2016)

* * *

It was past midnight and the date on the calendar marked _September 1st,_ _2024_.

The kitchen in which Seonghwa sat was mostly bathed in darkness, only the lamp above the stove was on, although it was weak. He felt safer that way; when he was about to conjure this memory he needed darkness. It felt too private, too precious; too painful to witness with daylight or in a bright room. It’d feel wrong.

This was something he needed to do surrounded by shadows — he could pretend they were the ghosts of those he had left behind, those that had left him — and with the stars outside — Cassiopeia somewhere watching him — he remembered the events of a summer that had happened five years ago.

Seonghwa set down a small sugary cake he had bought earlier. From a cupboard somewhere near the fridge he pulled out a pack with small, colorful candles and stuck one into the soft cake. He reached into yet another cupboard to retrieve a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. From the fridge he got an icy cold beer.

It was a tradition, not to celebrate, really, or to mourn; just to remember. Remembrance was so important.

Seonghwa lit the candle in the cake, then his cigarette. With a shaky hand he pulled out his cellphone. _Ah, the beer_ , he thought distractedly — desperately, as he tried to calm himself down and go through all the steps of this tradition he had brought to life four years ago, by himself, just so that he wasn’t consumed by grief and sadness — and searched for a bottle opener to uncap the beer. He didn’t feel the same way now, about it all, but the uneasiness and the memories did throw him off just as much, especially because _this_ was the only moment he really allowed himself to open that small box of memories he usually stored away for self-preservation.

The cigarette tasted horribly and at the same time just how he remembered it from the time he liked them, five years ago. The smoke felt funny in his lungs and he coughed loudly, wrinkling his nose. The last time he had smoked was a year ago, exactly on the same date. In between, he had stopped completely.

Raising his beer bottle to the starless sky outside in a cheer, Seonghwa took a sip, the fizzling and cold liquid tasted bitter on his tongue. He waited some minutes before finally blowing out the candle.

 _To you, Yunho_ , he thought to himself. _To you all._

Yunho had been his friend for a short time, but it had changed his life forever; they had met five years ago, just like the rest of _them_ had. September 1st wasn’t a special day in any way, but along the years it had become a way of remembering, of tradition. It wasn’t anything meaningful, but just a bright and burning need to remember Yunho. Another thing that Seonghwa allowed himself to remember was the summer of 2019.

He had a photograph hidden on his cellphone: it was old and in low quality, but it didn’t matter much to him. For all he cared, the photograph could be blurred and pixelated, and it would still hold the same amount of meaning to him. It would make him break down into tears, would make him breathless and sad just as much. Would make that ghost of comfort and acceptance come back to him for a little while.

The picture showed a group of young people, around their early twenties. They all seemed happy — or perhaps _happy_ was the wrong word, Seonghwa realized, but content within each other’s presence. He was in the middle of the picture, twenty-one years old, looking so much younger and hopeful than Seonghwa felt now. After all that had happened it seemed appropriate. He couldn’t imagine still feeling that same kind of hope as back then; he wanted to, though, someday he wanted to have hope again, maybe not in the same way because he wasn’t that Seonghwa anymore, but something else. A different kind of hope. He missed it. It was a work in progress, growing up and mastering adulthood, overcoming trauma while he desperately also tried to enjoy life.

Yunho was in the picture too, well and alive, before the tragedy. Yunho’s partner of the time, Mingi, held his hand. Seonghwa’s childhood friend Yerim was kneeling on the floor, striking a funny pose, with Yeeun, her girlfriend, right by her side. Then there was the youngest of the group, Jongho, half in the picture, half outside, with a peace sign and a mischievous smile.

Lastly there was Hongjoong, next to Seonghwa, with his black hair covering his eyes, those piercing brown eyes that seemed simultaneously so done with everything just as much as they appeared soft and warm. Like he didn’t want to let that gentle side win, like he didn’t think it _could_ win.

Behind the camera stood Wooyoung. Seonghwa still remembered Wooyoung’s radiant and youthful smiles, utterly comfortable and in love with all his friends. They all had been, in a sense: something powerful and louder than anything they ever had experienced had united them that summer.

Seonghwa often wondered where they all were, if they were even _alive_. He had tried finding them on social media, but found nothing. (He once almost had found Mingi, but they hadn’t updated their platform since 2018. Then there was Wooyoung’s old phone number scribbled on a piece of paper, hidden away in the depths of one of Seonghwa’s shoebox-functioned-into-treasure-box.) At some point Seonghwa had had to choose in between letting the past consume him every day, taking over all his thoughts and cloud his mind; or let go of it so he could function like a human. He had chosen the latter.

He couldn’t allow the past to control his future.

Except for this one night.

(Of course he randomly remembered throughout the year — when he saw a rainbow flag somewhere, when he heard a specific song, when he looked up at Cassiopeia — but he was always quick to push it away, a heavy sigh escaping his heavy lungs.)

Seonghwa zoomed in on Hongjoong’s face and allowed his heart to squeeze in his chest. To protest and get angry and yell at him to throw the phone away, to delete the picture, to forget and let it ( _him_ ) go. But it stuttered, too, remembering the nights in the gray city, the stars above, the river below, the city lights; the familiarity in between them even though they had been almost strangers.

Seonghwa wondered if Hongjoong was still alive or if the tragedy had pushed him to join Yunho up in Cassiopeia. And if he was still alive, Seonghwa liked to imagine Hongjoong was still doing music, that he would ride his rusty and old moped around the gray city at night time, the warmth of the street lamps making his features look softer and kinder than he tried them to look like. Seonghwa liked to imagine Hongjoong was still thinking of him too.

Sometimes Seonghwa wished to find a way back there, to reverse time and never walk into that bar, to reverse time and never fall in love with Hongjoong. But at the same time he didn’t regret falling for Hongjoong, he didn’t regret spilling out his heart, he didn’t regret getting hurt.

Seonghwa counted to ten, closed the photograph, and locked his phone. He grabbed the fork and ate the cake. The mix in between the bitter beer, the cigarette, and the sweetness of the cake wasn’t tasteful or enjoyable in any way, but Seonghwa didn’t care, it was his tradition and it was one he wanted to keep, no matter what.

After all, those city lights, as painful as the memory was now, had shaped him during these past years, and he was slowly starting to accept them.


	2. Chapter 1: City Lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: vague death, vague mentions of attempted suicide
> 
> cw: discussion of religion, lgbt+ rights

**5 years ago**

They met for the first time in May 2019. It was a bit messy and awkward, and they both weren’t half the people they wanted to be, but they met and they loved, and that was all that mattered that first time.

The night was unbearably humid, the kind that one would associate to a summer’s night in July or August, when the nights turned out to be just as hot as the days. A young man sat by The Bridge, feet dangling over the huge abyss underneath him, and glanced over the dark river in front of him.

His shirt clung to his skin, wet spots forming by the middle and lower parts of his back and by his armpits. He sort of hated it, felt grossed out by himself, but there wasn’t much he could do about it right now. He had used deodorant earlier, that had to do the trick for the rest of the night.

There wasn’t much he could make out of the river now with the night expanding overhead, but he _knew_ it was there, for one because during daylight he drove past it everyday to get to his university, and on the other hand because in the distance, where the party district lay — the clubs lining up and down the street right by the dock, muffled music carrying over to where he sat — the lights of the clubs reflected in the river, colorfully and distorted despite that there was no wind to cause movement on the flat and calm surface of the river.

Hongjoong sat up there, lighting his third cigarette as he watched over the darkness. Cars occasionally passed by behind him, where The Bridge offered the only connection in between one part of the gray city to the other — they were almost like two entirely different worlds, both conquered by money in very different yet similar ways. 

It was late, around 11pm, but it was a Friday night, so the gray city was still busy around this time. Whether it was young uni students like Hongjoong himself going somewhere to blow off some steam, or adults with office jobs ready to let loose and relax their stiff shoulders and backs caused by sitting in front of a computer all week long.

Be it whoever it was, the gray city was open for everyone that suffocating Friday night.

Hongjoong sat by The Bridge, feet dangling, smoking his third cigarette as he thought about nothing in concrete — for once in his life, he thought about _nothing._ His brain was disconnected from his body, and he just let the darkness underneath swallow him. His head too dormant and unfocused due to the heat to actually form any coherent thoughts.

Almost like he was dreaming. Sleeping while awake. Not quite like daydreaming. He couldn’t explain it.

He was waiting.

Yunho, his best and pretty much only friend, was about to be done with his job so they could drive off to relax some themselves. As uni students they were in the middle of their finals, their lives ruled by those last essays and exams. Then, summer and freedom would come. Although, Hongjoong wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of a hot and humid summer ahead of him.

There was a mosquito buzzing by his head and he moved his hand, swatting it away, annoyed, leaning away from the insect. It was way too early for that heathen to be out anyway. _This_ , he thought, distractedly, as he flicked his finger in an attempt to kill the mosquito, _is the main reason why I despise summer_.

Yunho would probably rant some about how summer was a wonderful time despite the insects, the sweat, the heat… Yunho was a one-of-a-kind type of person, Hongjoong didn’t just say that because they were friends — had been since they were children — but because he truly did think Yunho was a unique and marvelous person.

Yunho liked to ponder late at night, in the middle of the day, in the mornings while he had his first cup of coffee about what itmeant to be a human, what it meant to be alive… Yunho found joy in asking himself all sorts of philosophical questions and decompose the rules that humanity and society had set upon themselves years ago, only to find themselves chained down by them, unable to escape from them. Their lives dictated by them.

(With a grimace, Hongjoong thought, _God, I’m starting to sound like him_.)

Yunho wondered about anything, really, which could be quite annoying at times, but Hongjoong loved him dearly anyway.

Taking one last drag of his cigarette, he placed it on the surface he sat on, stomping his foot on it to extinguish the lit end, and kicked it away towards a corner. Ashes and pieces of dry tabac scattered across the cement. With a sigh he pulled out his phone and checked the time: _11:24pm_.

As big as Yunho’s brain might have been, he was always _late_.

(Hongjoong tended to be punctual, _overly_ punctual.)

He typed out a couple of aggressive — but not _too aggressive_ — words to his best friend, telling him to get his ass over to The Bridge so they could drive on Hongjoong’s old — and barely functional — moped towards the twinkly and colorful street, the one that reflected itself in the river waters, and drown their sorrows and stress with a couple of drinks.

Five minutes passed without any sort of reply, but there were approaching footsteps, slow and relaxed — no hurry in them, no shame, just confident and slightly distracted. 

That was just how Yunho was: always distracted by something. He looked around the world like it was the first time he was there (or maybe his hundredth time and he just couldn’t get enough of it), wanting to take in as much as he could to understand it all better. But just as much as he was distracted he was confident and asserted, every step sure like he knew what he was doing and where he was going.

Yunho was quite hard to read and store into a box, so Hongjoong had stopped trying a long time ago.

“Hi,” Yunho greeted him just like that, as if he hadn’t made Hongjoong wait for thirty whole minutes by The Bridge.

“Hey,” Hongjoong said back, and pulled himself off the ground, dusting off his shorts, and began walking up The Bridge, his friend behind him. “You’re late.”

Hongjoong couldn’t see him but he knew Yunho shrugged, a small shameless grin on his face.

When they reached the place Hongjoong had parked his moped at, he pulled up the handle behind the seat to get out two old and faded helmets. They had bought them together after Hongjoong had gotten the moped, back during those exciting days, new in the gray city and full of hope. They put them on and minutes later they were driving down The Bridge, accompanied by the yellowish dim lights the street lamps offered and the bustle of the city.

In Hongjoong’s ears the old motor of his moped rumbled, echoing off the windows of the buildings around them, the speed-wind swirling by him — a refreshing breeze contrasting the stale pool the air had been throughout the whole day. Although Yunho was much taller than Hongjoong and way broader, he sat behind Hongjoong, his arms tightly around his waist.

Hongjoong looked at Yunho through one of the side mirrors, who was staring at the cars, the civilians, and buildings passing by them with a distant look on his face. His recently dyed blonde hair had started to grow back in its roots, a stark contrast of colors. His dark brown eyes twinkled with all the different city lights.

Twenty minutes later they reached the brightly colored clubs by the river. 

Drunken girls and boys swayed dangerously close to the edge, someone dropped their drink in the dark waters and laughed loudly about it. It was a district that most people in the city pretended didn’t exist.

There was one _particular_ _street_ that got avoided in the daylight — and even at nighttime the visitors were careful. It had once been in worse conditions, the past years the street had filled more, become livelier and looser. Fear slowly ebbing out of its visitors. It was a simple street with come down buildings and dirt all over the pavement, and the smell of the contaminated river was strong, maybe stronger than anywhere else in the city.

It was a street secluded — two blocks away was the _actual_ party district where one would head to if they wanted to blow off some steam — and hidden. It was not taken properly care of by the city’s cleaning organizations, and it was ignored by the rich men in suits that sat far away (at the other side of The Bridge) in the City Hall, who had the power to restore and heal the buildings standing by the river.

The paint was peeling off the clubs, revealing darker and dirtier colors underneath, and the parts where all the paint was gone, humid cement was breaking off the walls. The rooftops were wrecked with holes in them; the windows were broken and replaced by wooden planks.

It was a street seen as shameful.

(But when Hongjoong had sat up by The Bridge it had been the only street that had been reflected in the dark river waters, like some mystical wonderland that stood its place, rising above and further despite being neglected by the general public.)

It was a street in which outside one of the bigger and more well kept clubs there was a man dressed in stockings, high heels, and a purple wig placed on his head. His face was painted with perfectly applied make up. He waved at every passing person, telling them to check out the club with a staged voice, staged performance, staged personality. Next to him stood a woman just as tall as him, her voice just as deep, her make up just as perfect, but she was a _woman_.

That was just how things were in this street. Anyone was free to be whoever they wanted to be, whoever they were supposed to be.

 _Whoever they were_.

Outside another club stood two elderly women, too preoccupied with each other, making sure everyone could see just how in love they were, but no one was really paying attention because about ten other couples kissed one another just as passionately — just as _freely_.

That was how things were in this street.

Hongjoong parked his moped a couple of blocks away from the street, and they made their way down to the usual bar they frequented whenever they had time and it was safe.

 _La Naranja_ was smaller than others, repainted recently with a dark yellow. It had only one floor, no upper stories; the windows had no glass in them, two thick wooden planks nailed on the frames like an X _._ The door was wide open and music filtered onto the street. The roof was broken, but it was hidden by hay and wood laying on top — it imitated a bit the look of an old and abandoned barn that needed renovations. Except that this place wasn’t a shelter for animals and farm tools, it was a bar for gay men and women. It was a place for people to get drunk and intimate.

It was a place for people to be _free_ even if it was only for one single night.

The inside was just as come down as the outside: the stools and tables were old and slightly moldy, repainted in black. The bar counter was rather small and there wasn’t a big assortment of alcohol. In the middle of the small and cramped place was something akin a dance floor, opposite from the bar counter were several small tables surrounded by couches and chairs. By the far end of the bar there was a DJ stand and a jukebox — Hongjoong wondered if the jukebox even worked anymore or if it served as mere decoration. To the right of the DJ stand there was yet another window, in the same condition as the front windows. Two doors stood on each side of the window: one led to the bathrooms and the other led outside, where an assortment of trash cans were and a small cement platform to sit on and stare at the river.

What really lured the guests in, aside from the interesting interior design, were the two young bartenders and the charming DJ.

Hongjoong had taken a liking to the bartenders two years ago, when he first had stumbled into _La Naranja_ and had ended up spilling his entire life story to one of them, who had taken pity on Hongjoong and had hauled him a taxi to get him home (even riding in the cab with him to make sure he _actually_ got home safely). After that, Hongjoong had frequented the place more and more until he had become a regular, dragging Yunho along with him at some point.

It wasn’t as if he was friends with the bartenders, they didn’t know each other outside of this street. Outside of this perfectly picturesque bubble they had crafted for themselves, where they all collided with one another, pretending there wasn’t a world outside this one secluded street. There wasn’t really much safety for them outside of this sanctuary they had built for themselves. That was just how things were sometimes. They weren’t friends, but that didn’t mean Hongjoong didn’t care for the bartenders, it didn’t mean that they didn’t share some sort of bond. Just because they weren’t friends it didn’t mean that they were _strangers_.

So when Hongjoong walked up to the bar counter to order his usual drink, he noticed immediately that there was something wrong going by the gloomy look one of the bartenders wore. His name was Jongho.

Jongho had a forced smile plastered on his face as he served the customer in front of Hongjoong, avoiding at all costs to give into the atrocious flirting the man threw at him. Hongjoong rolled his eyes but waited until it was his turn. Once Jongho’s eyes landed on him, he dropped the smiley and friendly act and let out an irritated sigh. He began mixing together Hongjoong’s drink, eyes snapping up at Yunho before he took out a second glass.

“What’s wrong?” Hongjoong asked as he leaned carefully against the bar counter. It was old, made out of residual wooden planks nailed together hastily and without much finesse, it wasn’t stable by any means and he wasn’t in the mood to accidentally break it — _again_.

“Just life,” Jongho began answering, shaking the silvery, oval shaped container Hongjoong’s drink was getting mixed in, “being a pain in my ass.”

Yunho nodded understandingly. “When isn’t it?”

“True that.” Jongho exhaled, his black fringe flying with his breath. He looked similar to Hongjoong: black hair, ears adorned with silver piercings, small stature — although Jongho was much more muscular than Hongjoong, training in his free time. “Right now it’s just a bit _too much_ , you know?” He poured the drink out of the silver container into a fancy looking glass and handed it over to Hongjoong before he started Yunho’s drink. “I failed one of my tests, my professor turned down my photography project, and my _fucking_ crush just showed up here. Why did he have to come _here_ of all places?”

“Isn’t that good?” Yunho asked, propping himself up on the counter as well, it creaked below him and Hongjoong quickly pulled away, cradling his drink carefully. “That means that he is, you know, _gay_ , to a degree.”

“It _means_ that he sees me working here in this bar and you know— _you_ _know_ what people think of _this_. You know the stories. Everyone knows about… There’s only so much cash I get from this job and we all know it’s not enough to pay rent and bills, so… Everyone knows how people _really_ make the big cash around here,” Jongho spat out, voice bitter and his face hard. His eyebrows were drawn together in a frown and his jaw was clenched.

(Jongho looked so much older like that. Aged within seconds, when the hardships manifested themselves. No one should have to go through this to grow up, to mature, Hongjoong thought.)

Hongjoong stared at his drink, swirling it around in his glass. Of course he knew _._ Like Jongho had said, _everyone_ knew. Hongjoong had turned down a pill or weed enough times, other times he’d had bought something, mostly weed. His heart clenched any time he saw someone younger than him, lips a pale blue and hands shaking, as they sold what they were addicted to themselves.

Hongjoong _knew_ , but hearing it fall from Jongho’s lips twisted something in his stomach, and he pulled out all the cash he had with him — all the cash he was supposed to use to refill the tank of his moped, to buy himself new pens for his classes — and pushed it towards Jongho.

“Take it as a tip for your friendly customer service or whatever,” he said before Jongho could even begin to protest.

Jongho took it reluctantly and pocketed it away, there was a hint of a grateful smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Hongjoong didn’t blame him, no one wanted to be pitied; not that Hongjoong didpity him, he just cared.

He cared and understood.

“Where’s Mingi?” Yunho asked then, as Jongho handed him his drink, and pulled out some money to hand Jongho, more than what the drink costed, who took it with his ears red and his mouth pulled into a thin line.

“I don’t know.” Jongho shrugged looking around the bar, his eyes searching. “They were here just a second ago. Maybe they’re taking a break or,” he stopped and glanced at Yunho, he swallowed before he spoke again. “Or something.”

Yunho frowned, the look in his eyes carefully blank, and moved the rim of the glass to his lips, tipping the glass, almost finishing his drink in one go. Hongjoong was well aware of his friend’s crush. It would be cute if not for the complicated circumstances.

They bid their goodbyes to Jongho as a new group of customers approached the counter, and walked to one of the tables across the bar. It was already occupied, there wasn’t that much space in the bar to begin with, but it wasn’t as if anyone cared if someone sat at the table with them. They were all there for the same reason: it was the only place they were unconditionally accepted at.

(Whereas they usually found themselves in a room full of enemy eyes, this was the only place they found a room full of friendly eyes. A room full of broken mirrors giving back their own image, but with a twist to it. They were all equals in one way or another, different backgrounds, similar stories.)

At first Hongjoong didn’t really pay attention to the people that sat at the table with them, he focused on his conversation with Yunho, talking about this and that (global warming, their new neighbor, the stray cat near the bakery), and catching up with one another — even if they were flatmates and attended the same university, they often missed a chance to talk like this. But by the third time the young man next to Hongjoong laughed loudly and obnoxiously, he turned around slowly to shoot the guy an annoyed glance.

Hongjoong’s heart stopped.

 _Everything_ stopped.

The man was around the same age as Hongjoong, his skin was naturally tan and he had wavy, dark brown hair that was pushed back from his face, artfully parted in the middle, appearing silky and soft. He was wearing a loose, short sleeved shirt and skinny jeans; there was a necklace hanging around his neck and a snapback on his lap. His eyes were crinkling in glee and his mouth was parted in a big, open mouthed smile; it was shaped like a heart — or at least, _very_ similar. His face was rather soft looking, but his jawline was strong, and his eyebrows were sharp and thick.

The man was laughing loudly, slapping his friend’s thigh, his entire body shaking from the force of his delight. His laughter was still loud and slightly annoying, but Hongjoong found it to have a melodic side as well. And soon Hongjoong noticed how the corners of his own mouth turned upwards as he kept staring at the stranger’s free delight.

“Dude…” Yunho called for his attention, elbowing him softly and making him look away from the young man.

“What?”

“That’s Wooyoung,” Yunho pointed out, one eyebrow raised, amusement tucking at his mouth. Yunho’s eyes were on the other young man, who was complaining about his thigh bruising from the force with which his friend was slapping it. “He goes to the same faculty as I do. His dad is _mad_ rich. Owns a big company or something.”

Hongjoong then looked at Wooyoung, who held himself with grace even if he sat in the middle of a dirty bar in a street that wasn’t meant for gracefulness. He had raven black hair parted in the middle as well, it was a bit curly. His nose was almost comically big, but it didn’t make him look unattractive, rather interesting; glasses with a delicate frame sat on the bridge of his nose, that he kept pushing up every couple of minutes as they slipped down. Wooyoung’s red button up looked expensive, just like the golden bracelets that hung from his wrist. He wore white shorts, pretentious and way too clean to be sitting with them on some worn out couch where someone had thrown up on (on more than once occasion). Wooyoung’s lips were currently pursed in disdain as he stared at his friend, rubbing his thigh soothingly. His eyes were clear and youthful.

From Wooyoung’s ears hung different piercings much like Hongjoong had himself, or like Jongho had.

Wooyoung didn’t look like someone that would come to a street like this. He didn’t like look like he belonged there. Yet he was.

“I didn’t know he was gay,” Yunho said pensively, and reached out his hand.

Hongjoong felt a short moment of panic raise in his chest, but then it was too late: Yunho was already touching Wooyoung’s elbow, grinning and waving his hand at him. Wooyoung seemed taken aback for a split second, eyes widening at the sight of seeing a familiar face, and his lips parted in shock, but then he slowly smiled back. The shock faded to acknowledgement and then relief.

“What a coincidence,” he said, his voice was soft, if not a bit high pitched. “Yunho was it?”

“Yeah, Wooyoung, right?” Yunho asked back even if he already knew the answer, it was rather out of courtesy. “So, what takes you here?”

Wooyoung tilted his head and raised both of his eyebrows. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Yunho leaned back into his seat, color rising to his cheeks, and he let out an embarrassed laugh.

“Yeah, but why _La Naranja_?”

“I don’t really know.” Wooyoung shrugged. There could be a million reasons, there could be none. He could have just found the music that filtered onto the street interesting, he could have been lured inside by a drag queen standing outside the bar, he could have picked it out randomly. There could have been a million reasons, there could have been none. It didn’t matter, he was there just like them. “This is my friend Seonghwa, by the way.”

He pointed at the guy that had caught Hongjoong’s attention earlier.

Seonghwa grinned at them. His eyes met Hongjoong’s for a millisecond only, just passing by, before settling on Yunho. But it was enough for Hongjoong’s head to start spinning and he unconsciously leaned forward, as if he was getting pulled in. Hongjoong had his head steadily held in his hand, propped up on his elbow on the table, while his other hand was loosely around his drink, but he felt his chin slip out of his hand and he caught himself in time, straightening his back and hoping it hadn’t been as obvious as he felt it was.

“Nice to meet you.” Yunho reached out his hand to shake Seonghwa’s. “This is Hongjoong.” He pointed at Hongjoong who suddenly felt himself be a lot drunker than he actually was — than he was supposed to be — because it took all his energy to tear his eyes away from Seonghwa; to reach out his own hand to shake everyone’s hands; to smile politely and grumble out a greeting of his own.

After holding Wooyoung’s gaze for three whole seconds, his eyes found their way back to Seonghwa, like he was a magnet. Like he was a light in the depths of a dark forest, up on a hill, in the middle of the night, and Hongjoong was a traveller passing through in desperate need to reach that light.

There shouldn’t be no higher reason as to why Hongjoong felt himself drawn to Seonghwa, there shouldn’t be a reason at all, only that Seonghwa was an attractive young man and Hongjoong was incredibly gay — and apparently a lot drunker than he thought — but even then Hongjoong felt it: _something more_.

They were interrupted by a tornado of raven hair, flashy clothes, and a twinkling necklace that seemed to shine brighter than any star in the sky. The tornado was a woman around their age, with long and curly raven black hair that wildly framed her round face; she had dark brown eyes and a rather small nose, her cheeks round, and her lips plump (a ring shaped piercing hanging from the bottom one). She seemed to know Wooyoung and Seonghwa as she let herself fall into Wooyoung’s lap, giggling and showing them something on her phone, not acknowledging Hongjoong and Yunho in the slightest.

“To be young and in love. Disgusting!” Wooyoung grumbled and pushed her slightly off of him. The tornado wasn’t fazed in the slightest, she rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder.

“We’re exactly the same age, idiot. You’re just bad at flirting! I’ve literally known you for like three hours, but what I’ve seen is enough for me to determinate that you’re a lost case, my guy,” she stated and flipped her hair over her shoulder in an obvious attempt to hit Wooyoung’s face with it, who scoffed and leaned back into the couch to avoid it. “Anyway, should I say yes or…?” she asked Seonghwa, a concerned look on her face. 

“Huh, well…” Seonghwa side glanced Yunho and Hongjoong, slightly uncomfortable with the situation — the only one uncomfortable as it seemed. “You’ve known each other for seven, eight years? What are a couple more?”

The girl hummed.

“It would be annoying if you wouldn’t do it,” Seonghwa added. “I did not play wingman for you two to _not_ date.”

The tornado pondered for a moment, tapping her chin with her index finger. She glanced to her side where Hongjoong and Yunho sat at, and gave them a polite smile but did not acknowledge them any further. A sigh escaped her mouth and she closed her eyes; she seemed oddly calm in the midst of that club, of the scenery around them… She seemed to feel comfortable there and it made Hongjoong believe she probably could feel comfortable anywhere in the world. When she snapped her eyes open there was a warm smile on her face, one that Hongjoong hadn’t really seen any person ever wear, but he had read about it in books and he imagined that this was what _it_ must look like.

 _Love_.

“You’re right,” she agreed and quickly typed something into her phone.

“Uh, Yerim, by the way,” Wooyoung began once she had stored her phone away, she lifted a bottle of beer off the table to her lips, and looked over at him with interest. “We met some people while you were away. These are Hongjoong and Yunho,” he introduced them and Yerim seemed slightly embarrassed. She put down the bottle to stretch out her hand.

“Sorry. Nice to meet you. I’m Yerim.” 

Once the pleasantries were over, Yerim squeezed herself in between Seonghwa and Wooyoung, the latter of the two protested but Yerim just elbowed him. They bickered back and forth after that — it seemed to be their _thing_ — whereas Seonghwa joined in on the conversation Hongjoong and Yunho were holding about music.

There was an unspoken rule about five in the morning.

When the pitch black sky above turned into a dark navy blue, slowly and gradually going towards lighter shades of blue, and the sun crept up somewhere in the horizon by the edge of the city. There was an unspoken rule about five for everyone to _leave_ , and no one protested, no one desired to stay longer.

Five in the morning, when the sun wasn’t out, yet, and the sky was still dark, hiding them, sheltering them from the eyes of those that tended to roam away from that street, like they physically couldn’t enter it.

This was one of those unspoken rules they all followed.

It was the same rule that dictated that they all were strangers outside of the street.

Hongjoong sat back on his moped, Yunho’s arms were around his waist loosely as he was leaning back into the small backrest, undoubtedly dozing off. When Hongjoong drove through the city during this odd hour of the day — when it could be both sunset and sunrise, when it could be both dusk and dawn — he let his eyes roam across the pretty much empty streets and thought about the night. He wondered then what it would have been like, how things would have turned out, if there weren’t any rules; if they weren’t forced to hide away in a confined place surrounded by darkness.

But there was no point in wondering, the truth was different and Hongjoong had to live with it. 

They stumbled down the sidewalk, their arms linked together and their giggles bouncing off the walls of the buildings lined at both sides of the street. 

Seonghwa couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so ecstatic and excited about life, his future. He couldn’t remember the last time he felt this good about coming to terms with his sexuality. It always had been this dark cloud looming above his head that he had tried to ignore and bent into something that was a lot more palatable for others (and himself), but it had never brought him much. In the end, he always had gone back to those fleeting moments, in the middle of the night, in which he’d fantasize about what it would be like if he lived in a different world and he could admit to himself — and said world — that he was into men rather than women.

And then Yerim had told him that she was lesbian, had known ever since she was twelve, a bit before she had met Seonghwa. The admission had come about a year ago, and ever since then Seonghwa had struggled with the idea whether he should come out to her or not. He had decided to do so about three weeks ago, nearly broken down in front of her. Yerim had just hugged him. She’d told him she knew how that felt like and had slung her arms around him, muttering words of love and support to him; and, for the first time, he had believed that it actually could be _all right_. Eventually.

Yerim had asked him if he wanted to go out some night, check out gay bars, and that Friday it finally had been the time. The kick that Seonghwa had gotten from lying to his parents about his whereabouts for the night and visiting the gay district — the lights of which had reflected in the river when they had passed over The Bridge, hours ago, riding the bus — still lasted.

Meeting Wooyoung had been a humorous event: the younger had tried to flirt with Seonghwa, but his pick up lines had been atrocious and Seonghwa’s only response to them had been amused and embarrassed laughter; instead of being insulted or offended Wooyoung had decided to stick around with them. It had been the first time for both of them and somehow that experience had made them bond in a way Seonghwa never had been able to do with a stranger previously.

Wooyoung had ditched Seonghwa and Yerim when the group had split up after the clock had struck five in the morning, he had called up a taxi to pick him up at some spot nearby. Hongjoong had dragged a tired Yunho behind him, explaining that he had parked his moped a few streets away and was going to take it from there. Yerim and Seonghwa were the only ones that had to walk, not that it bothered them much, Yerim lived nearby with her girlfriend, Yeeun, and Seonghwa was crashing at theirs. Their couch was always available for him, had been since forever.

The clearer the sky got so did Seonghwa’s head, and he started to look back at the events of the night. It had been good, better than he had expected it to be, and although he hadn’t exactly flirted with anyone, he didn’t feel particularly bad about it. He wasn’t even sure he would’ve been able to do so, it was a new world to him. The idea to kiss another man, be intimate, maybe even date another man was exhilarating just thinking about. But utterly scary as well, of course. It was new and unexplored and so full of possibilities (and disillusions).

He thought of Hongjoong then, and wondered if he’d meet him again. He’d like to.

**May 18, 2019, 31 minutes:**

_I only just met you, but I already know now that I won’t forget you_

* * *

Theoretically Hongjoong knew that there was no point in it; there wasn’t really a future. There were many people that came and left. Many people that came once to see what it was like, to experience something like that at least once in their lifetime. Hongjoong knew this, he was aware of it, but it didn’t stop him from climbing onto his moped the following night, when it was past midnight already, and Yunho’s snoring resonated through their small apartment — it had been one of the numerous reasons as to why Hongjoong had found it hard to fall asleep that night. 

He put on a clean shirt and pulled a pair of basketball shorts over his briefs, slipping on his old sneakers by the entrance, grabbed his keys, and left their shared apartment as quietly as possible, locking the door behind him.

The night was just as warm and stuffy and humid as the previous one, the temperature difference in between his room up on the fifth floor and down on the streets was practically null — nonexistent. He walked over to his moped, inserted the key inside the ignition once he sat on top, and drove away from the apartment block down towards the docks, where the colorful clubs lay by the river. His hair swirled around his head as he had foregone his helmet, enjoying the way the breeze hit his face while he drove down the empty and orange tinged streets.

Just like the previous night, he parked his moped close and yet far enough from the infamous street.

(Far enough so that his arrival wouldn’t be announced to anyone living in the houses around the gay district, no one could trace his moped back to where he lived and find out his name and who he was; but not too far away either, so that in case of an emergency he could escape quickly without having to run too far to get to it.)

His steps echoed around the empty street: the shops lined up and down were closed, metal bars over the glass windows and the doors, providing limited view into their dark interior. The apartments above the stores were all submerged into darkness as well, no one awake — or well, if anyone _was_ awake they weren’t showing it. 

He walked down the street and rounded the corner, at the end of the street he spotted two guys pushing each other around and giggling quietly, sharing a bottle of _something_ , they seemed carefree and happy. At first Hongjoong didn’t think much of them, minding his own business and speeding up his steps to get to his destination, but then one of the guy let out a loud and boisterous laugh. It echoed and bounced off the walls until it reached the depths of Hongjoong’s chest, where it made his heartbeat pick up in pace and his blood pulse through his body quicker than before.

The laugh made Hongjoong’s hands shake, his knees weaker, and consecutively made his steps turn unstable and a bit awkward (like a baby duck waddling towards its mother or like a penguin walking on slippery ice) as he walked towards the source of that now familiar laugh.

Wooyoung spotted Hongjoong first and grinned at him. He beckoned him over and slung his arm around his shoulders, pushing the bottle him and Seonghwa were sharing towards him, nearly knocking it into Hongjoong’s chin, and then proclaimed loudly that it was fate they were meeting each other again.

_Fate._

Seonghwa nodded as solemnly as a drunk person could, trying to fight the laughter that always seemed to be at the tip of his tongue. Seonghwa pulled an arm around Hongjoong’s shoulder as well, snatching the bottle away — Hongjoong hadn’t even had the chance to take a sip yet — and downed almost half of it.

“Whoa, slow down,” Hongjoong said then, taking the bottle away, cautiously moved it to his lips — it was proving to be a very difficult task with the two arms slung across his neck, belonging to two very intoxicated young men — and took a sip. It tasted horrid, definitely one of the cheaper liquors from a cheap grocery store.

“No, no, I—” Seonghwa protested, stumbling in his steps and turning his head to look down at Hongjoong. “No, I’ve waited too long and I don’t want to slow down, Hongjoong” he finally managed to coherently say (whine).

“Uh-huh.” He rose his eyebrows at the statement, deciding against commenting on it. “You can call me Hong, by the way. All my friends do,” he just told Seonghwa.

“I prefer your full name, Hongjoong, it’s pretty.”

A huge grin plastered on Hongjoong’s face — he knew it must’ve looked dumb, but there were those jitters and he was oddly pleased to be hearing his name fall from Seonghwa’s lips — and Seonghwa smiled back.

They sat in _La Naranja_ , Hongjoong with his elbows propped on the table, his usual drink in between his fingers. Seonghwa held a drink of his own that Mingi had prepared for him: it was new and had two different colors, and seemed way too sweet to be healthy. Wooyoung had ordered a simple beer. They sat at the table and chatted amicably like three strangers would, nothing too personal but not too robotic or impersonal either.

“So, how did you two meet?” Hongjoong chose to ask at some point late into the night.

“Funny story actually,” Seonghwa started, giggling to himself. “I only met Woo yesterday. I was bar hopping with Yerim when we met him in one of the other clubs, and it was the first time for the two of us so we decided, you know—”

“Beginners stick together, **”** Wooyoung interrupted Seonghwa with a dramatic voice and a gleeful smile tugging at his lips, he leaned over the table to smack Seonghwa’s shoulder in a friendly manner. 

“Yeah, beginners stick together,” Seonghwa repeated, smiling just as big as his friend, but he did rub his shoulder softly as if to ease the pain. Then he fixed his eyes on Hongjoong. “How long have you been going here?”

“Uh, for about two years? A little longer maybe? Not sure.”

“Ah.” Seonghwa’s eyes widened and he looked at Hongjoong with something akin wonder. “That’s a long time. But why do you still come if you have Yunho? I mean,” he stuttered then, unsure how to proceed with his words. “I mean you’re here to, well, find someone, aren’t you? And you did so why…? It’s like, dangerous here so—”

“Alright, I’m gonna cut you off there,” Hongjoong interrupted Seonghwa, snorting at how flustered and slightly pink the other man looked.

(“That’s probably for the best,” Wooyoung piped up from where he sat across them.)

“Yunho and I aren’t together, we are best friends and flatmates. We met when we were like eight, back in our hometown. And all we’ve been since then is really good friends,” he began explaining, Seonghwa deflated next to him, letting out a quiet _oh_ to which Wooyoung laughed loudly. “And the reason I come here isn’t to find someone. Not precisely. I come here because I can be _free_.”

“Free?”

“Yes, I don’t have to hide the fact that I’m gay. I don’t have to hide a big and essential part of my life. I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not. I don’t have to be scared someone will frown down on me here. We’re all the same.”

Seonghwa stared at his drink deep in thought, he didn’t really look drunk anymore, and there was a frown appearing between his brows. He swallowed and looked up.

Maybe it was because Hongjoong was gay and, even if he was really picky when it came to his partners, Seonghwa just so happened to be exactly everything Hongjoong looked for. Maybe it was because the disco ball hanging from the ceiling casted colorful lights around them, bathing Seonghwa in an orange, red light that highlighted the smoothness of his skin and sharpness of both his jawline and cheekbones, darkened the color of his brown eyes. Maybe it was because Seonghwa’s hair was curlier that night, hanging low over his eyes, giving him an alluring and mysterious look. Maybe it was because Seonghwa was a conventionally pretty and handsome man, and anyone would fall for his natural charms.

Whatever it was, it made Hongjoong stop breathing the moment Seonghwa looked up at him, and there was _something_ in his eyes. Something Hongjoong didn’t know how to name, throwing him off guard. His heart began beating wildly then, holding the truth within its depth.

“I want to be free too,” Seonghwa whispered.

It took a while for Hongjoong to reply, to find his words. His heart was still beating hard in his chest, his mouth was dry, and his mind was more confused and blank than ever.

“You can be,” he said slowly, then cleared his throat and decided to rephrase it. “You are. If you’re here you already are.”

**May 19, 2019, 23 minutes:**

_I don’t believe in coincidences anymore, not after I met you again tonight_

* * *

“Fancy,” Hongjoong commented as Seonghwa walked up to him.

He was wearing his black, polished tuxedo, a pale green tie hanging loosely around his neck; his dark brown hair was pushed away from his forehead. Hongjoong himself looked like he pretty much always did: his black hair unkept and wildly styled, his clothes just some basketball shorts and a black, plain t-shirt with small holes at its seems.

It was a week after their second encounter and they were meeting up in a street near the gay district, just a couple of blocks away. They had arranged during their previous meeting to reunite their small, new found group of friends and buy cheap alcohol in one of the grocery stores — the ones that were open for 24 hours. The plan was that they’d walk down to the docks, sit by the river, and get to know one another before dancing off their spare energy in the dimness of _La Naranja_.

Seonghwa snorted at the remark and looked down at himself. “It was my grandfather’s funeral,” he commented with a shrug and Hongjoong’s smile slipped off his face.

“ _Shit_ , I’m sorry,” Hongjoong apologized, feeling flustered about his lack of decency. “My condolences,” Hongjoong chose to say, but Seonghwa just smiled at him, shrugging it off.

“It’s whatever. Death happens.”

 _Besides_ , Seonghwa thought to himself grimly, _he was a piece of shit._

Even if he had a smile plastered on his face and he slung an arm around Hongjoong’s shoulder to drag him towards the small store where Yunho, Yerim, and Wooyoung already waited, counting the money in their wallets, he knew that there was a lingering sadness in Seonghwa’s eyes, barely visible.

The store was small and with the four of them inside it, strolling through the aisles, it was pretty much crammed. Wooyoung jokingly pulled out a pack of condoms and asked if any one of them would need them. Yerim shook her head and snatched the pack out of Wooyoung’s hands to place it back onto the shelf, pushing him towards where the alcohol was stacked. The owner of the shop gave them a knowing glance as they placed a six pack of beer on the counter and a bottle of the cheapest vodka, she scanned the products without enabling in much of a conversation, but she bid them goodbye with a big smile and a ‘have fun’.

While Hongjoong and Yunho went for the beers, Wooyoung and Yerim chose to drink straight from vodka bottle, downing it like it was water. Seonghwa hadn’t touched any of the alcohol yet. He sat in between Yunho and Hongjoong and was staring at the dark waters in front of them, the lights of the clubs behind them were reflecting in the river. The Bridge hung between the gray city, uniting the two sides. Yunho had his feet in the water, moving them forward and backwards in a slow motion, and wore a pensive look on his face. Yerim sat with her knees pulled up, bent forward, one arm slung over her knees and her chin resting on it.

It was a calm ambient, but Seonghwa was hyper aware of Hongjoong’s pinky finger brushing against his own and the way the other would steal glances in his direction every couple of seconds. It was driving him up the walls, his heart beating wildly in his chest, and he felt so incredibly conscious of every sip he took out of the beer can he was nursing. He panicked, thinking that he would accidentally tip the can too far back, spill the contents on his face, and choke on the part that would end up in his throat. He feared he would embarrass himself in front of Hongjoong.

(But of course that didn’t happen, it didn’t stop Seonghwa from worrying though.)

The mere presence of Hongjoong by his side made him nervous and be on edge, emotionally and literally, as he was leaning forward on the platform they were sitting on, almost all the way, with the tips of his feet gracing the surface of the waters below. Seonghwa felt as if he was going to combust at every and anything Hongjoong would do: take for an example the way Hongjoong’s knee was brushing against Seonghwa’s…

“Do you ever think about how somewhere else, far away, people like us have more freedom but it’s like never enough?” Yunho asked them suddenly, it wasn’t a question he wanted an answer to, it was simply a start to what would end up being a long and philosophical rant. Hongjoong let out a sigh, but didn’t stop his friend from spilling whatever thoughts he had running around in his mind. Seonghwa turned his head towards Yunho curiously, and Wooyoung placed the vodka bottle by his side to give Yunho his fullest attention. Yerim turned her head to look at him, her other arm coming up to search blindly in her jacket pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “Like, here we are, fighting for some decent representation, for being able to walk around the streets without having to hide away in the nighttime like we are some creeps or—I don’t know! But the people in other countries, overseas, they have some of that freedom already, and it’s still not enough,” he said, leaning back, his feet were not moving anymore in the water. “It’s like… When you think about it… It’s amazing what all makes out a human’s right to life as freely as possible. Some people aren’t even aware of their privilege or freedom. And we… Whether it’s us here or those like us overseas, we have to fight for it every single day and it’s such a slow process, and even if there are some that already have more freedom than us here, it’s still not the same.” He finished abruptly and deflated. There was a lingering sadness in his eyes.

The kind of sadness Hongjoong knew all too well. It was something everlasting, something that wouldn’t vanish easily — if ever at all. It was the sadness Yunho had carried within himself from a young age, when he had begun to understand how unfair the world was, and that he would carry to his grave most likely. It wasn’t an easy thing to change the world towards something better. 

It was the kind of sadness they all had to carry within themselves during this one lifetime. 

“Are you… crying?” Yerim asked, carefully, and reaching out her hand to let it rest on Yunho’s shoulder.

“I just hate that freedom has become this unreachable goal that we are supposed to chase until the day we die, even if we all know it’s impossible and we won’t see the day we truly are free _._ **”** He further let himself spiral down into his thoughts. “I don’t think someone who _hasn’t_ been robbed of these rights will ever truly _understand_ freedom, and the price that comes with it.”

“Are you a Philosophy student or something?” Seonghwa asked, his voice full of awe as she stared at Yunho.

“No, I study Social Studies, trying to specialize in Human Rights. And I have a minor in music,” he replied with a shrug.

“But secretly, at home, he is a Philosophy major. You should see the stocks of books he has all around the living room,” Hongjoong commented with a laugh.

“Aren’t you in Social Studies too?” Wooyoung wondered, and looked at Seonghwa.

“Started out with Law, but I am thinking of changing to Social Studies next year.”

(Hongjoong hadn’t known that. There was a lot he didn’t know about Seonghwa, yet, but somehow the fact that Seonghwa studied Law surprised him as he had mentioned previously to be into dancing and music. Hongjoong had assumed it was what Seonghwa was doing, and part of him had hoped for it to be true, because he was majoring in music and it could have been something they had in common. But Seonghwa studied Law. The picture of Seonghwa in a neat suit, small leather messenger bag slung across his shoulder, and wearing polished black shoes popped up in Hongjoong’s head, and it felt _wrong_.)

“What do you study, Hongjoong?” asked Seonghwa eagerly.

“Music Production.”

“Oh, that’s cool; how did you persuade your parents to let you study that?” Wooyoung asked him, leaning forward so he could look past Yunho, Yerim, and Seonghwa, directly at Hongjoong. His eyes were slightly unfocused from the amount of vodka he had taken already, but his voice wasn’t slurred and neither did he seem drunk at all.

“I didn’t. They’re not happy with me but it’s my life so…” he trailed off and let the implications of his statement hang in the air. Wooyoung leaned back again, but there was a frown on his face.

Seonghwa bit his bottom lip and looked away from Hongjoong, towards the river.

Yunho didn’t say anything else, his rant over, and stared at the dark waters too, wordlessly, with a far away look on his face. Hongjoong took a last swing from the beer can he had been sipping from for the past minutes and, as the last drops slid down his throat, he crashed the can in his hand and tossed it to his side where they had set up a trash bag. He reached for the six pack and pulled out another one.

A waft of smoke came from Yerim’s now lit cigarette, surrounding them completely in a gray cloud. Overhead, Cassiopeia twinkled brightly, its future importance still lost on them.

**May 26, 2019, 2 hours and 41 minutes:**

_I really want to know everything there is to know about you_

* * *

Hongjoong should have made it clearer that he wasn’t one for camping or barbecuing in the wild; that he wasn’t all too keen on sitting on a leaf covered ground as the sky darkened above them, with mosquitoes buzzing all around the small clearing they had planned to set their tents up at. He wasn’t particularly fond of any extreme nature related experiences.

But there he was, in the middle of the forest, holding a fork to turn around the meat grilling away on the steel grid. The burning coal sizzled quietly and the heat it radiated was strong enough to hit his face, droplets of sweat formed on his forehead and slid down the sides of his face. Even in his tank top and shorts it was still too hot; even if he took sips from his water bottle he held in his other hand he still felt dehydrated and in desperate need of taking a shower, or drop into the ocean.

He should have tagged along with Yunho and Seonghwa, who went out to the small creek nearby to get enough water for the night and to wash the vegetables, at least there he could have cooled down, but his lazy ass had said he’d grill the meat because he had thought it would be easier, it would be uncomplicated. And it was.

But he hadn’t thought about the _god damn_ heat.

Mingi was off to built up the two tents they had brought. One belonged to Wooyoung, whilst the other one Hongjoong had bought a couple of days ago when they had arranged the camping trip. Wooyoung seemed to know what they were doing, skillfully putting together all the pieces and hammering the big plastic nails into the ground, surrounding them with rocks so they wouldn’t come loose in case it got windy. Usually, in movies, Hongjoong had this perception that tents were hard to put together, one piece flying off, a nail coming loose, and the person trying to put it together ending up tangled and annoyed, but not Mingi. In the span of half an hour, they had both tents up and going. They set up special scented candles they had brought, the scent was supposed to repel mosquitoes, which Hongjoong desperately hoped would work because he was in no mood to wake up with his arms, face, and legs covered in bites.

It was established that Hongjoong really wasn’t one for camping, but when Seonghwa had suggested it two weeks ago, with a hopeful smile gracing his lips and talking all about the stars that they could see once they were away from the city’s light pollution, talking about the tranquility and peacefulness of the nature, Hongjoong just hadn’t been able to find a reason to deny him that. He hadn’t found one reason as to why camping was a bad idea.

But now there were about a million that crossed his mind.

With a sigh, he looked at the meat sizzling away. Mingi was somewhere behind him setting up the coolers and pulling out two beers, one of which they handed Hongjoong. 

After cracking open their can, they approached the grill, peering over Hongjoong’s shoulder. “Smells good. I hope they’re back soon because I’m starving,” Mingi said, licking their lips as they stared at the meat. “Did you season it?”

“Who do you think I am? Of course I seasoned it.” Hongjoong scoffed, offended, and turned the meat around one last time, deeming it as ready soon.

The four of them sat by the grill, each with a porcelain plate — an assortment of vegetables, meat, and freshly cut bread on them — and with a cold drink in their hands. The sky was dark already, no lights around them aside from the candles inside the tents, the glowing coals in the grill, and the small oil lamp Yunho had brought. 

And Seonghwa had been right, it _was_ peaceful. The sky _was_ starry.

Not just some scattered stars here and there flickering weakly, not just one planet shining brighter than the stars, not just the moon smiling down at them. It was different here, there were so many stars, more than Hongjoong ever remembered seeing in the sky. At first glance there were the usual constellations he knew, but upon looking further he noticed all these smaller stars in the distance, far away conglomerations. As if someone had taken a white pen and decided to see how many dots they could draw on a black sheet of paper before they ran out of space.

And the moon!

The moon was shining so strongly, like a chandelier, and below it, there was Venus, standing faithfully by its side. A bit further, way above from Venus’s position, and shining with its own might, was Jupiter. Hongjoong didn’t remember ever being able to see the planets in the sky, not even back in his hometown where the light pollution wasn’t as bad as it was in the gray city. But up on the hill, in the forest, he could see the universe: the Milky Way was drawing a huge cut through the sky, most of the star accumulating there. Cassiopeia was hanging low over the mountains in the distance. Yunho pointed it out, deeming it his favorite constellation.

It was beautiful up and Hongjoong wanted it to last forever, under the stars during a summer’s night. There was something magical about it, something that made everything else seem so small and insignificant — all his problems and worries evaporated. Under the universe expanding above them, he understood all those books he had read about how truly romantic summer nights, with the stars shining in the sky, could be.

He understood it as he moved his eyes toward Seonghwa, whose gaze was fixed on the moon, eyes shimmering with the reflection of the sky above; his eyes were just as beautiful and twinkly as the stars. He looked ethereal and Hongjoong didn’t want this moment to be over.

**June 18, 2019, 9 minutes:**

_This is cheesy, but tonight you shine brighter than any of the astral bodies above_

Mingi and Yunho had moved into their own tent, too tired and too lazy to wash up the dishes, saying they would do it the following morning. Hongjoong knew the four of them would regret this choice, but he didn’t care much because he really wasn’t in the mood to take a walk through the dark forest to the river and wash the dishes either. That wasn’t on his list of top priorities in that moment.

Hongjoong crawled into his the tent he shared with Seonghwa, closing it behind himself, and looked at Seonghwa, who was hastily shoving something into his bag.

“What were you doing?” Hongjoong asked, raising his eyebrows in question and suspicion.

“Nothing! I was checking the time on my phone,” Seonghwa replied, but his cheeks seemed to turn red; it was hard to tell, though, in the dim light the candle offered. “It’s late.” He added after some minutes, moving onto his back and staring up at Hongjoong.

“Yeah…” Hongjoong said, stupidly. He didn’t really function aside from letting his eyes roam over the young man in front of him.

Seonghwa was propped up on his elbows, his tank top stretching over his chest with one strap dangerously sliding down off his shoulder, exposing his collarbone. He had his legs crossed, wearing nothing more than some boxer shorts, and Hongjoong noticed how trained his legs were, his thighs and calves well defined, most likely due to the dancing he did. Seonghwa had his head tilted to the side and was staring up at Hongjoong with an expression full of wonder and buzzing excitement.

But there was an underlying _fear_ as well in his eyes.

Hongjoong swallowed dryly, but didn’t move from his position, he couldn’t move. He was rooted to the spot and all he could do in that instant was stare at Seonghwa. He wasn’t sure what expression he held himself as he wasn’t sure what _exactly_ he was feeling. He knew he felt the typical need turning in his abdomen, the burning sensation in his chest, the anticipation that came linked with a setting like this one. But it was so different from every other encounter he had had previously like this. There was an unknown, unnamed, uncertain heaviness in his heart.

This heaviness was what had rooted him to the spot, it made the hairs in his neck stand up, and he shivered at the unfamiliar feeling that was growing in his chest and spreading all over his body, loud and hot, extending to his arms, where it made his hands shake, down to his toes. There was a rushing sound in his ears and he could feel them heat up, undoubtedly turning red. He felt his toes tingle with that same feeling.

He was on edge, overflowing with something he didn’t know the name of, and he kneeled down then, in front of Seonghwa, his eyes never leaving the other’s.

“ _Hongjoong_ ,” Seonghwa whispered, it was barely audible, like a breeze passing through the top of a tree, making the leaves rustle, and goosebumps appeared on Hongjoong’s arms. He shivered again as he leaned the slightest bit forward. “Hongjoong,” Seonghwa repeated, louder, swallowing slowly, “I’m not—I haven’t…” He didn’t finish whatever sentence he wanted to get out, instead it lingered in the air between them, the _silence_.

It was heavy and charged with tension, even the cicadas singing outside and the far away voices of Mingi and Yunho talking in the other tent a couple of meters away weren’t enough to break the spell that Hongjoong and Seonghwa found themselves in. It was as if they had created a universe of their own, in which only the loud beating of their hearts existed, their erratic breathing of wanting something _so badly_ but being haunted by years of fear and hiding.

They found themselves in a universe only lit up by a small candle standing at the entrance of the tent, a soft and foreign scent coming from it, not too strong to take control of their olfactory senses. For all that, Hongjoong could smell was whatever was left of the barbecue, the pine trees around them, and Seonghwa’s own fragrance (a mix in between some neutral perfume and something sweet and alluring).

Hongjoong stopped in his movements, sitting back on his heels and staring at Seonghwa: from the way he was looking up at him, his lips parted and breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling, his eyes were widened in surprise — quite like he couldn’t believe this was really happening — and fear, the same fear Hongjoong knew all too well. Seonghwa gulped, the noise breaking through the quietness around them like a knife, and Hongjoong snapped out of his hypnotic state, chasing the movement of his Adam’s apple.

None of the other times Hongjoong had found himself in this position with another man ever had felt this intimate, this important. None of the other men had been quite like Seonghwa for that matter: they had been quick hook ups serving for the simple purpose of getting off and moving on. But this was different, it had been different ever since the first moment they had run into each other at _La Naranja_ a month ago, because Hongjoong never had befriended or cared this much about any of his other hookups.

“It’s _all right_ ,” Hongjoong finally said, his voice was raspy and it sounded way too loud in the small universe they found themselves in. “It’s all right,” he repeated and leaned forward again, slowly placing his hands on Seonghwa’s bare knees for stability as he further inclined his body towards the other man.

Seonghwa didn’t say anything, he simply kept his eyes on Hongjoong, switching in between looking at his eyes and his lips like one of those balls in a pinball machine moving around the field quickly and bouncing off all the obstacles. Seonghwa didn’t say anything, but his lips were parted and he was breathing even louder than before, if possible, erratic and nervous, and excited.

“Tell me if you don’t want this.”

“I do,” Seonghwa muttered. “I do want this.”

When Hongjoong was only mere centimeters away from Seonghwa’s face, the latter licked his lips, unconsciously and slowly, and Hongjoong decided he had had enough and leaned in the small distance that still separated them. It was soft and hesitant, he was testing the waters. The kiss itself was short, but then Hongjoong changed the angle of his face and leaned in again and so they shared a dozen short kisses, none of them all too heated or forced, simply basking in the feeling of having each other that instant.

And because Hongjoong noticed how badly Seonghwa was shaking going by the hand he had sneaked around Hongjoong’s neck, barely touching him, fingers twitching every couple of seconds. Hongjoong felt his own arms begin to hurt from where he was putting all his weight on them on Seonghwa’s knees, his elbows about to give out, and so he pulled away to remove his arms before he slipped away. Seonghwa moved forward slightly, chasing his mouth, and then he snapped his eyes open to look at Hongjoong, his pupils were blown wide and there wasn’t that much fear left in them, instead there was something else in them.

“Is this… Are you okay with this?” Hongjoong asked him quietly as he sat back on his heels and looked down at Seonghwa, searching his face. The answer to his inner questions and worries was right there.

“ _Yes_ ,” Seonghwa replied, his voice was hoarse, heated, strong. He swallowed and pushed himself off the floor and sat up straight, being the one to lean forward then. “Yes,” he repeated, softer, and moved the hand that previously had been on Hongjoong’s neck to cradle Hongjoong’s face, equally as hesitant and shaky. He moved his thumb carefully, so, _so carefully_ , over Hongjoong’s cheek, barely even touching him, but even if the movement was delicate and soft it sent tingles up and down Hongjoong’s spine. Electrifying.

“Do you want to go further?” Hongjoong inquired, a bit embarrassed, and Seonghwa stopped moving his thumb, it rested by the crease of Hongjoong’s eye, who was starting to regret the question as the fear from before returned in Seonghwa’s eyes, but before he could even take back the question and tell him that they didn't need to go further, Seonghwa beat him to it.

“Yes,” Seonghwa answered in a whisper. “Yes, I do.”

**June 19, 2019, 5 hours and 45 minutes:**

_No one ever cherished me like you did_

* * *

The sun was hanging low in the sky, behind the buildings, and a flock of birds passed by noisily, seagulls; a thin layer of clouds moved lowly between the buildings; and somewhere in the distance there was a fog horn resonating over the river. A bus passed by behind Hongjoong, and down the road where he had come from passed a police car with its siren on. Hongjoong flinched at the noise, but kept walking over The Bridge to sit at the spot Seonghwa had told him to meet at.

It was late noon and Hongjoong was waiting by The Bridge, Seonghwa had said something about needing to talk to Hongjoong urgently. He hadn’t elaborated further, leaving Hongjoong in the dark and wondering for three days what it could have been. His voice on the phone had sounded off, strangled, stressed.

Hongjoong waited by The Bridge, placing a cigarette in between his lips and fishing in his pocket for his lighter. He took the first drag and exhaled the smoke slowly, his nerves calming and the shaking in his fingers coming to a stop. He watched the smoke dissolve in the misty air.

A variation of topics crossed his mind that Seonghwa might want to talk about, and Hongjoong wasn’t sure if he was ready for any of them. He thought back to the night in the tent and the way Seonghwa had looked up at him with his eyes hooded, the way Hongjoong had trailed his hands down his torso under his shirt. There had been that _fear_ in Seonghwa’s eyes about letting it happen, about allowing himself to love freely, to let himself _feel_.

Hongjoong had understood it so well because he had been there as well, years back, when he had been a lot younger, hiding in a car far away from civilization and kissing his first ever boyfriend. But in the tent, with Seonghwa, it had been his… Who knew? He had lost track of how many hookups he’d had, but it had been just as nerve wracking and scary as the first time. Even if they had been secluded in some forest, the only people with them their friends who knew and understood. And yet, when Hongjoong had leaned in towards Seonghwa’s parted lips, his heart had beaten fast and painfully in his chest, he had tightened his hands around Seonghwa’s rib cage to make sure he would still be there, that he wouldn’t vanish — and to ground Seonghwa as well, to tell him it was _all right_ , that they were _allowed_. But that was one of the ways their love was doomed, constantly with a grain of fear in the back of their minds, with that permanent insecurity the other person might turn their back and run away.

Seonghwa hadn’t run away, he had stayed under Hongjoong’s hands, breathing out a sigh when their lips had touched. He had stayed when Hongjoong had removed his shirt and carefully had trailed kisses down his neck, down his collarbones, down his chest…

“Hi,” came a familiar voice and Hongjoong’s train of thoughts was cut off by Seonghwa’s figure approaching him. 

Hongjoong coughed in the middle of his drag, choking on the smoke that ended up filling his lungs. He closed his eyes in embarrassment and cleared his throat, he threw the cigarette off The Bridge and into the ever darker growing waters of the river below.

“Hello,” he returned the greeting and straightened his posture. 

He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to welcome Seonghwa: should he hug him, should he pat his shoulder, should he kiss him? (He didn’t even know _what_ they were, and there was only so much protection The Bridge’s construction could offer them from the passing cars.) So he chose to simply stand still and wait until Seonghwa stood right in front of him.

Seonghwa was wearing basketball shorts and a tank top — a very Hongjoong-esque outfit — his dark brown hair wasn’t styled, it was falling wetly into his face as if he had taken a shower only a couple of minutes ago, or perhaps it was due to the humidity in the air. There were huge bags under his eyes and his skin was paler than usual. He looked tired and worn out. Hongjoong wondered what had happened, his heart sinking.

“I… How have you been?” Seonghwa asked him, reaching out his hand hesitantly towards Hongjoong’s face but stopped dead in his movements, his hand floated in the air for a split second before he finally let it drop by his side again and simply stared at Hongjoong with longing, fear, and so much more.

“Good. Fine.” He wasn’t sure if he really could feel _fine_ anymore upon seeing Seonghwa so differentfrom his usual confident self. There was something so twisted about the tired look in his eyes. “What about you?”

Seonghwa looked at him for a brief moment before he turned away, towards the railing that separated the pavement they stood on and the abyss to the river, he leaned against it, his elbows on the railing, feet crossed, and his face looking up at the darkening sky.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Not so good, I guess. My parents — they kicked me out. I, uh…” He bit his lip and blinked his eyes repeatedly, rapidly, fighting off tears, and Hongjoong _knew_. “I came out to them.”

Hongjoong swallowed the slump in his throat and reached out his hand to let it rest on Seonghwa’s bare shoulder. Damned be those that passed by and were going to judge them, he didn’t care in that instant. Seonghwa’s skin was warm under his fingertips, and he felt his own hand shake. Hongjoong felt helpless as he stared at the young man, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He couldn’t help him, he couldn’t make it better, he couldn’t reverse it.

He couldn’t do anything and he hated it.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Seonghwa looked down then, meeting Hongjoong’s eyes. “It’s not our wrong doing.”

When Hongjoong first had met Seonghwa, he had felt that usual sort of attraction he felt whenever he saw a good looking man, the sort of attraction that drove him to drag _said_ good looking man into an empty toilet stall or behind a busy bar, or _getting_ dragged to the inside of a car parked away a couple of streets. It was the sort of attraction he had experienced so many times before that lasted for one, two, maybe three encounters and then it was over. But when he looked at Seonghwa he felt something a lot stronger, it was heavy in his heart, and he could feel his eyes burn as he kept looking back into Seonghwa’s own.

It was a lot more. It was something he hadn’t really felt before. And he was scared.

So, so scared.

**June 22, 2019, 15 minutes:**

_I’m terrified this won’t last long, because I want it to_

_I hope you do too_

* * *

And just like that everything was different.

It wasn’t Hongjoong and Yunho against the world anymore. Compared to their previous summers, where they had worked their asses off, taking on more shifts than they could handle as they’d had plenty of free time without their stressing college classes — or when Hongjoong had holed himself up in his room and had worked on his music while Yunho had made himself comfortable on their couch, reading countless of books until there had been a tower of books looming in their living room (dangerously close to tipping over) by the end of summer — this summer was different in many aspects. For starters, they weren’t holed up in their shared flat or working extra shifts, and instead they were spending their time an awfully lot at _La Naranja_ (staying past 5am, sometimes) or roaming the streets with their newfound family.

(On one glorious day Wooyoung had invited them over to his big mansion on the other side of The Bridge, when his parents were gone due to a business trip and he had taken that chance to have them over for a pool party, which had ended up in a bad hangover and Yunho nearly breaking the pool pump. But what Hongjoong remembered the most was Seonghwa kissing him, both of them under the pool waters, the world in shades of faded turquoise. The kiss had been fleeting, just their lips brushing together and nothing more, but it had sent Hongjoong’s heart into overdrive, and he’d had to surge up to the surface to catch his breath and cough his lungs out. Seonghwa had laughed at him, but it hadn’t been malicious or ill intended, he had laughed and looked at Hongjoong with his eyes full of stars. And Hongjoong had realized that maybe he was a little bit in love.)

It was 6 in the morning, on a Saturday, and they were in _La Naranja_ — just like they had been the past Saturday. They had helped the bartenders and the DJ with the cleaning up, and then had stayed back to enjoy the sunrise and whatever time they had left before they were forced to go back to their respective lives.

Yunho sat on the couch in the bar, bottle of coca-cola in one hand, his other arm occupied with being around Mingi’s shoulder, smiling to himself as he listened to what they were telling him. Yerim and Yeeun were hanging out at the back door of _La Naranja_ , smoking as they talked in hushed voices and observed how the river waters tinged with the early sunset. Jongho was dancing stupidly with Wooyoung to whatever shitty music the DJ had left them behind, still drunk and high off the night, not caring that the first rays of sunshine were filtering through the window now. Hongjoong sat on one of the other couches with Seonghwa on his lap, taking in the scene and patting Seonghwa’s hair absentmindedly.

**July 18, 2019, 1 hour:**

_I never knew how good something like this could feel like_

**August 2, 2019, 5 minutes:**

_My heart is greedy and I should be happy with just this,_

_but I want so much more_

**August 14, 2019, 2 hours and 9 minutes:**

_If I could be with you like this for a little while longer,_

_I’d choose that over and over again_

**August 20, 2019, 3 hours and 14 minutes:**

_I realized that day that even if the darkness swallows me up whole,_

_the thought of you is enough to spark a light in the distance_

**August 20, 2019, 12 hours and 45 minutes:**

_I lied_

_It’s unbearable_

**August 20, 2019, 18 hours and 2 minutes:**

_Don’t let your hurt separate you from everyone else; from me_

**August 21, 2019, 1 day, 10 minutes:**

_I can’t breathe, please pick up_

* * *

Hongjoong stood up on the ledge and stared down into the dark waters. The gray city was mostly silent, barely any cars passed over The Bridge, only some distant sirens carried over to him. He balled his hands into fists and clenched them, intently staring downwards, to what he told himself would be his destiny.

The first time he had stood up there on The Bridge in the same fashion as he was right now, had been some years ago, when Hongjoong had been freshly admitted to university and had moved out from his hometown, where he had spent his entire life. Under the watchful eyes of his parents.

Their voices that had turned stern and resentful after he’d told them his truth. Their love that once had been unconditional, suddenly conditioned by their hate towards people like their own son. They had been unaccepting of his sexuality and Hongjoong had stood up on this exact same spot staring down at the waters below, struggling with himself and life and validation. He had just gotten off the phone with his parents, whom he had confessed to that the secret that he hadn’t been tell them before leaving was that he was gay. He hadn’t been able to tell them in person, terrified of the undoubtedly shift their eyes would go through. How they’d suddenly look at him differently.

Even through phone he had felt it. He had felt the disappointment coming off of his mom, the downwards twist in his dad’s mouth, their overall rejection. He had felt it all even at such a distance. They hadn’t gotten far with their disapproving words as Hongjoong had just dropped the phone, back in his and Yunho’s living room.

Then he had run aimlessly through the streets, the city lights his only companion.

Hongjoong had been young and scared, just getting to know himself, baby steps in the long journey of self acceptance and discovery. His legs had brought him over to The Bridge.

He hadn’t jumped then, Mingi had found him. Yunho coming minutes later, running and looking like a madman, fear and tears streaming down his face. His tan skin had been glistering with sweat, his brown eyes worried, relieved, angry, scared… Mingi and Yunho had talked Hongjoong down from the ledge, had taken him home where they had helped him shower.

And there he stood again, fighting with himself and his thoughts that night.

Yunho was gone, he wasn’t coming back, _ever_. He wasn’t going to come running and help Hongjoong down from the ledge. Mingi probably stood with Hongjoong up on the ledge, too heartbroken to move anywhere, mourning the loss of their dearest friend.

Hongjoong didn’t know what to do, he felt so incredibly lost. Looking down at the dark waters made him shiver with fear, he didn’t want to die, but he didn’t want to live either; not with this unbearable pain. He couldn’t.

He swallowed down all those feelings and was about to close his eyes and take that step, but his eyes fell onto Cassiopeia peeking out form behind the city’s skyline. Hongjoong frowned and stopped, paralyzed all of a sudden, as he stared at those five stars in the distance.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he whispered, choking out a sob, and began to violently shake. He stepped away from the ledge, falling onto the pavement of The Bridge.

The city lights made everything look strangely warm and soft.

Maybe Hongjoong wasn’t going to die that night, but he sure didn’t feel like a living human either from then on.

**August 23, 2019, 3 days, 2 hours, 12 minutes:**

_We shouldn’t isolate ourselves, but it’s so hard facing everyone_

_Facing you_

_I’m so sorry_

* * *

Funerals in summer sucked: the sun was up in the sky and casted warm rays onto the small group of people that had gathered around the grave. It sucked because the sky was supposed to cry about the loss or whatever the fuck, but instead the sun was out, the sky was clear of any cloud, and bluer than Hongjoong could remember ever seeing it. (Or maybe it was simply the fact that he did see the entire world differently now.) He had sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose to block out the sun, to hide his red rimmed eyes as he had been crying a lot throughout the past week, and to help with the hungover he was currently sporting.

He was sweating profoundly in the low quality black suit he was wearing, he had borrowed it from some cheap rental place which made itself noticeable in that moment as the fabric itched horribly on his skin, which he hoped wouldn’t end up with some allergic reaction because there was only so much he could handle on that day. Mingi stood to his left, in a black suit too, they weren’t wearing sunglasses. They were crying and letting everyone see it. Yerim was by their side, clasping their hand tightly, while with the other she was holding Seonghwa’s. Wooyoung stood behind Hongjoong, pale and still looking a lot like he had the previous week when he had called an ambulance to come pick Yunho up. Jongho was leaning against Wooyoung, looking numb and tired.

All of them looked pretty much the same in their black attire and grieving stages.

Yunho’s parents were there too, but they stood apart from the group of friends. Hongjoong never really had bonded them, but they had called him saying they wanted to meet Yunho’s friends, the people he had spent his last hours with. Hongjoong despised them a bit because they were good friends with his own parents and reminded him too much of them, but they had moved out of their hometown and to the gray city, deciding they wanted to watch their son grow. And now he was dead.

Hongjoong was having a hard time accepting this as the truth, as real events that had occurred. Somewhere he still held the hope that he would get back into his flat and Yunho would be sitting at the kitchen counter, with his old laptop open, headphones connected, a bowl of salted peanuts on the counter which he would reach his hand into every couple of minutes, wearing some boxers and that stupid and too big on him tank top, with that Labrador figurine he adored so much for some reason.

But no, he _wasn’t_. He was in that ugly and cheap coffin, wearing a suit as well. He was in there and about to get buried.

It was too much and Hongjoong wanted to leave, but Yunho would have stayed if the roles would have been reversed. Yunho would have written some amazing eulogy about what a great guy Hongjoong had been. But Hongjoong had nothing for Yunho; _fuck_ , what was he even supposed to say? Nothing would bring Yunho back and nothing would alleviate his pain.

So he said nothing and simply stared at the coffin as someone held some words of consolation and a graveyard worker began throwing shovels of dirt onto the coffin in a ceremoniously way. Hongjoong’s stomach twisted at the sight and he looked away, at his shiny black shoes that he had to give back to the rental shop in seven hours.

Funerals _sucked_ , period.

Seonghwa reached out his hand, hesitantly, it brushed against Hongjoong’s knuckles, soft and uncertain and it took everything in Hongjoong to not reach out his own hand and link their fingers together. It took all in him to not cry right there; it took everything in him to turn his body towards Seonghwa and let him hug him.

Seonghwa’s hand stayed there, awkwardly, barely touching Hongjoong’s own hand, before he finally made up his mind and he slung his arm around Hongjoong’s shoulder, drawing him in close and squeezing his shoulder. Hongjoong felt the tears form in his eyes and he blinked rapidly to dissipate them. He couldn’t cry there, not with people around him, not with the sun out.

When the funeral was finally over, they all went separate ways except Seonghwa, he came with Hongjoong to the bus station, getting on some random bus with him, and drove until the very last stop with him. They didn’t exchange a single word during the ride, simply stared out of the window, their knees brushing together, their elbows touching.

As the bus slowly came to a stop at the last station, they stumbled out and the bus drove off into the distance. They were somewhere outside of the city, where the rather rural side was, with farms stretching out behind them and the forest around them, a small hill in front of them.

Hongjoong began walking, wordlessly and tired. He just needed time, he needed time to process and digest all of this. He needed time to _understand_ what had happened and what it meant for him, what he wanted to do now, where he wanted to go from now on.

He walked up the hill, through the forest, with the trees serving as a shelter from the scalding heat of the sun, a soft breeze brushed through the leaves making them rustle softly like a whisper. He loosened the knot of his tie and threw it onto the pine needle covered ground, then he took off the jacket and opened the first couple of buttons of his shirt. It had been suffocating him. Behind him, Seonghwa picked up the tie and stuffed it into the pocket of his blazer.

The walk was tedious and the more the sweat ran down his back, formed under his armpits, and accumulated in his neck, the more he regretted getting his suit from a cheap rental as his skin itched more and more. But it was a small evil compared to the image of the coffin getting buried underneath a thick layer of dirt, taking Yunho with it. Hongjoong wished he could have spent more valuable time with his best friend.

The itch on his skin was a lesser evil compared to the way Hongjoong’s heart was being weighed down by the obedient steps behind him, it was lesser of an evil compared to the decision Hongjoong was taking with every step he took forward, up the hill. How could he concentrate on an itch or on the heat or the sweat when he was about to break Seonghwa’s heart? When he was about to break his own heart?

As Hongjoong stood up on the hill then, watching the gray city in the distance, the farmlands in front of him, the forest behind him. He stood up there and his head was far away from being clear, he was far away from finding an answer to this entire mess. He didn’t know anymore what was right or wrong. His whole world got flipped upside down and he felt so incredibly helpless.

Yunho had been his rock, something to ground him, someone to help him get out of bed when the days got too hard for him to handle; someone to help him tear down the wall when he felt like all his problems built up in front of him and he felt like drowning. Yunho had been there for him for so many years and now he was gone, just like that; within the blink of an eye he had lost the person that had mattered the most to him, the person that had always accepted him. The person he had grown up with.

And he couldn’t do it anymore.

Hongjoong turned around to where Seonghwa stood behind him, eyes on the landscape in front of them, his face was unreadable and he looked beautiful. He looked so beautiful that it hurt Hongjoong. And he knew he was about to make a decision he would most likely regret later, but it was for the better. He was going to take a decision that Yunho would have scolded him for — but he wasn’t there anymore, he wasn’t there to prevent Hongjoong from making regrettable choice, to reprimand him and show him the right way. He wasn’t there anymore. And Hongjoong had made his choice.

“ _Seonghwa_ ,” he said, voice raw and husky from all the crying.

Seonghwa’s eyes snapped to his and the look in his eyes… Hongjoong swallowed down the knot in his throat. Seonghwa looked a lot like he had during that June night in the forest, which they had shared in the tent. Seonghwa had looked at Hongjoong with a sort of nervous excitement and had smiled awkwardly, twisting his hands in his lap until Hongjoong couldn’t take it anymore and had leaned forward to press his lips to Seonghwa’s.

Seonghwa looked a lot like that, the nervousness in his eyes, the fidgeting, the way he tried hard to keep his eyes locked with Hongjoong’s but would shift his gaze away every couple of seconds.

Hongjoong wished this situation was as easy as the one in the tent had been, he wished he could lean forward and kiss Seonghwa. But he couldn’t. He just _couldn’t_. So he voiced it out loud.

“Seonghwa, I can’t do this anymore,” he told him.

Seonghwa was stunned for a moment, too perplexed to show any emotion, to feel anything, but then his face ranged through different emotions, too quick for Hongjoong to fully decipher and understand. Seonghwa’s brows furrowed and he looked away, down at his shoes, as he slowly let the words sink in.

“You can’t do this anymore?” he repeated, slowly, to make sure he understood. At Hongjoong’s silence he looked up sharply and let out a humorless laugh. It was a laugh Hongjoong had never heard before fall from those lips. It was scary and nothing like Seonghwa. “You can’t do this anymore?”

“Seonghwa—”

“No, no. Fuck _you_.” Seonghwa stepped forward, the couple of centimeters he had on Hongjoong really making a difference then as he seemed suddenly a lot taller than Hongjoong had ever realized. “You fucking—I get that you’re hurt. Do you think I’m not fucking grieving Yunho’s death? Do you think I’m _unaffected_?”

“No, Seonghwa, that’s not—”

“I outed myself to my parents. I got kicked out, Hongjoong. I got kicked out of home for you. I _fucking_ risked so much for you, to be with you, and you, _you_ can’t do this anymore? I’m sorry but, what the _fuck_? You’ve got to be kidding me. What the fuck am I supposed to do? I got kicked out of home and am living in a shitty hostel right now because I can’t afford anything else and you—”

“I never told you to out yourself, I never told you to—”

“No,” Seonghwa shook his head vehemently like he was trying to dissipate some thought in his mind, or wake up from a bad dream, “you’re right, you _didn’t_. You didn’t tell me to out myself, but you kept saying that anyone hiding was a coward. You said all those things. You wanted me to come clean with my parents. And I get it, I do, believe me,” he continued, a strange and disconnected smile on his face. It scared Hongjoong. “You didn’t want to be some—some _dirty_ secret. So I told them. I didn’t want you to be a secret, either.”

“Seonghwa, I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re _scared_. It’s not quite the same.” He pushed Hongjoong softly, not strong enough to make him lose his balance and have him stumble backwards, there wasn’t any hate or anger in it, but it wasn’t soft or friendly either. Seonghwa grabbed a fistful of Hongjoong’s white shirt, messing up the perfectly ironed material. “Is this what you _really_ want?” he asked, voice soft and like a whisper. It was full of emotion, charged with so much more than was visible on his face. “Yunho said love is stronger than hate and he is right. Don’t let—Please don’t leave me.”

Hongjoong couldn’t reply, his throat was tightening up and the tears were ready to spill out. He just stood there and stared at his dirty shoes. Seonghwa’s grip on his shirt loosened and he stepped back, there was that empty laugh again. So _unfamiliar_.

“Fine,” Seonghwa said and stepped away further. “Fine. Goodbye then.”

And just like that he walked away. 

Hongjoong watched his back disappear in between the trees until he was completely gone. Then he felt his knees give away and he slumped down onto the pine needles; he felt himself shake, overtaken by a pain stronger than anything else he had ever felt, tearing apart his heart.

And he started crying.

**August 27, 2019, 16 minutes:**

_I hate you_

**August 27, 2019, 4 hours, 57 minutes:**

_I’m sorry that my words may have seemed harsh,_

_but they were the truth_

**August 27, 2019, 9 hours and 28 minutes:**

_Please don’t hurt yourself_

**August 27, 2019, 10 hours and 1 minute:**

_I realized I never told you that I love you, but I do, I do. Guess it wasn’t enough_

* * *

The train ride back to his home used to be boring and something he used to dread all the previous time he’d had to take it, but that morning, as he was leaving the gray city to see his family, he felt _nothing_. Once inside an empty compartment in the wagon, he didn’t even register that the train had started moving, leaving the bustling station. He didn’t see the houses, the pine trees passing by, he didn’t fully realize the landscape passing by outside. It was a blur.

The train was almost empty, usually around this time most students were on their way back to the gray city to start university again, not driving back home, but Hongjoong wasn’t going to keep studying, he had dropped out. He had thrown away most stuff in his apartment and only had kept the most important, essential things. He had donated all of Yunho’s clothes to a shelter for homeless youth, he had given away most of his friend’s belongings to whoever had needed it. Then he had left the apartment in a hurry early that morning and had bought a ticket for the first train back to his hometown.

There was no point for him to stay in the gray city anymore.

And his parents had been ecstatic to have him back, to drop his dream of becoming a musician, to drop his shameful acts of sleeping with men, to drop everything that made _him_ himself, and become instead what they always had wanted him to be. There had been comforting words as well about his loss, even if they never had quite liked Yunho, blaming him for Hongjoong’s choices.

Hongjoong remembered the call he’d had with his mom a couple of days ago. He had called her, breaking down on the phone and she had told him to come back home, to drop all of this stupid act he had put up to rebel against his father; she had told him to come back and be their son again. And he did. He was going against his nature, but he had no motivation or strength to resist anymore — to fight.

It was a cowardly act, specially as he had worked so hard to become independent of his parents and live on his own, _be his own_. But by his side had always been Yunho to push him forward and catch him every time it had gotten too much. Every time he had felt doubt. But Yunho wasn’t there anymore.

He wasn’t.

Hongjoong sat in the train on its way to his hometown and he stared at the blurry scenery unravelling outside, passing by in high speed turning into a blob of colors and horizontal lines. Hongjoong had zoned out and when his brain focused back into the present the train was coming to a stop, it wasn’t his destination, rather one of the smaller villages that he had to pass on his way hometown. He stared at the people getting off the train and those getting on. It was a small train stop, a few benches spread around on the platform and only two railways — one to get into the village and one to exit it. It was a simple stop, not much to offer: there were two ticket booths, only one was occupied by a man with countless of wrinkles on his face, he was talking to a young couple, smiling fondly at them; there were several trees lined up on the platform, serving as a sort of decoration, and Hongjoong noticed that one of the trees already had an orange leaf.

The inevitable passage of time.

He had met Seonghwa by the beginning of summer when everything had been in full bloom, green and colorful, the sun had hung high in the sky, and there had been this expectation everyone had held. But now it was September and summer was coming to an end, it all felt like a dream. He couldn’t even remember what Seonghwa’s laughter or Yunho’s voice sounded like.

It had been two weeks since he had last seen Seonghwa, three since he had last seen Yunho, and he was already forgetting them.

Hongjoong stared at the orange leaf and felt tears spill out of his eyes, sliding down his cheeks to his chin.

**September 27, 2019, 1 month:**

_I guess that was goodbye_

* * *

Seonghwa walked down the rows of students, his shirt neatly tucked into his gray trousers, his tie hanging from his collar, the knot tied perfectly and neatly. His dark brown hair was brushed to the side, not much product in it, _neatly_.

 _Neat._ _Perfect, clean, organized._

But there by his elbow, there were five dots, forming a familiar and well known constellation, linked together by a fine line. The ink was etched into his skin forever, it was a tear, a cut of that immaculate exterior image he had crafted over the past five years. It was a bit of chaos in that neatness he presented. It was a change from what he once used to be, from what his parents wanted him to be, what society wanted him to be.

It was a constellation he wore with pride and shame at the same time. It was a constellation that made him think of summer nights, colorful streets reflected in a river, shabby and moldy bars, and most important _freedom_. The story behind it sometimes weighed him down, it made it hard for him to get out of bed on some mornings, it made his heart race in fear and a knot appear in his throat, then his lungs would run out of oxygen. It made Seonghwa what he had become this day.

Seonghwa, twenty-six years old now, walked towards the final row of students, by the front of the classroom, and he placed his messenger bag on the desk that was at his disposal. He said no words, simply switched the light inside the classroom off, and turned on the projector that hung from the ceiling, the whiteboard lighting up in a horrid and shrill blue shade. He pulled out his laptop, wordlessly; hushed whispers of the students filled the room. He set up his computer, connected the USB cable of the projector into the laptop, and opened the document he had prepared for the initiation of the class. Seconds later the white board filled with a colorful text.

Silence spread across the big room, it was tense and expectant. It was astonished silence, the kind of silence Seonghwa had faced many times before, always for the same reason and there he was again, with that _same reason_. This silence haunted him into his every dream, it haunted him every time he stepped out of his home; it’d follow him everywhere he went for the rest of his life. But he stood in front of twenty students, _allowing_ that silence to be there.

“What,” he began slowly, carefully, making sure he got the attention of every single student on him and wearing his authoritarian voice, “do you know about the laws for LGBT people in this country?” he asked, simple enough. 

He looked around the classroom, taking in the faces of the students. The range of emotions that stared back at him were wide. 

“Sir,” piped up a boy from the back, raising his hand, slowly and just as carefully as Seonghwa had spoken, his face was rather blank but his eyebrows were pulled into a frown. “Sir, according to the book and info pamphlet, this isn’t the topic we start with,” he stated, lowering his hand just as slowly as he had raised it.

No one else added anything to that, their eyes were on Seonghwa.

“This is the introduction class to Ethics and Social Studies, where we focus on different matters, one of which are human rights. Are you saying gay rights _aren’t_ human rights?”

The boy bit his lip and his face turned red, embarrassment visible. He frowned further. “No but—I mean, it’s a sensitive and controversial topic,” he simply stated.

Seonghwa smiled, it wasn’t joyful or a product of amusement, it was tired and sarcastic. It was a smile he didn’t have before, it had started to appear over the course of the past five years. He had started to get more often than not into situations like these and he had learnt to smile things off, even if deep down they tore yet another cut into his already bruised and damaged soul. It was a smile that was more like an armor, to shake off the insecurity, to pretend he wasn’t as bothered as he actually was.

To protect himself.

“Controversial,” he echoed, the smile transforming into a hollow laugh. “Controversial: _giving rise or to give rise to public disagreement and controversy_. The question is why would we still disagree on LGBT topics? People like to throw around the word ‘controversial’ together with ‘LGBT’ so they can abstain themselves from actually discussing about it. So they can avoid reflecting upon it, simply choosing to follow what they have been told their entire life. Choosing disagreement because it’s easier than to reflect and for a more educated and thought out opinion.” He moved around the front of the classroom, arms behind his back in a typical posture professors and teachers often adopted to seem careless and composed, but behind his back he had his hands balled into fists. “Being gay, being bisexual, being transgender… Why is there any reason for living freely to be controversial? Why are we still debating—arguing over whether someone should have the right to love freely, to marry their partner and adopt a child that is in desperate need of a home, of loving parents? Why are we still calling it controversial when someone wants to live their life as the gender they are supposed to be?”

“It goes against many religions,” a girl said. She sat in the front, she didn’t seem to really believe her own words, rather repeating what she had heard the grown ups and media around her preach for her entire life. 

“There are many things that go against different religions that we still do. Look around you, someone sitting next to you might have different beliefs than you, something you do might be prohibited to them, but you still _do_ it,” Seonghwa said, the attention of the entire room on him. “How is it that in so many religions it’s said to love yourself, to love and cherish your family and your friends, to bring joy and love to those around you, but then it prohibits that same message just because it’s a man that loves another man, a woman that loves another woman… Where’s the sense in that?” He moved towards his desk again where his computer was, and moved his hand towards the keyboard, where the arrow pointing towards the right was, his finger hovering over it. He held his breath before he pressed the key.

But as Seonghwa began to talk about the first themes they were going to learn, the books the students were going to read, the presentations and documents they were going to need (found in the school’s alumni online portal), he noticed that not many students were really taking in what he was saying, most of them seemed distracted and deep in thought. He hoped it wasn’t because he was boring, but rather because hey were reflecting on what he had started the class with. He kept talking, running on autopilot and reciting what he had rehearsed and memorized for this very first class. 

In the back of his head, though, he was sitting down under a big bridge in a city far away, on a cement block with his feet dangling close to the waters of the river below him. Next to him was Yunho talking about this very topic, passionate, seeking to contribute to change.

Back then, Seonghwa would have never thought, wouldn’t have guessed that his parents forcing him to study Law, something he didn’t actually want, would have ended up with a good outcome; back then, Seonghwa wouldn’t have thought much about how years later the rants Yunho had held and Seonghwa had listened to avidly would end up meeting a bigger audience; back then, Seonghwa hadn’t known, yet, how mysterious life worked. How the smallest and most insignificant encounters and conversations could carry a bigger meaning later on, but there he was, five years later, in a classroom full of young and bright students, the change that had started within Yunho himself, and that he had carried to those around him, changing Seonghwa, now further spread into the minds of twenty people.

Change would always be small and insignificant in the beginning, but it could become so much more, and Seonghwa was witnessing just that.

Later that night, he sat in his small apartment, in front of his laptop, preparing classes and assignments, when a new email popped up in his work mailbox — the school had an email system between students and teachers to resolve doubts or questions. It was from one of the dozens of students he had taught that day. Someone faceless that maybe would reveal their face, or stay as one of the numerous anonymous faces hidden in the crowd that attended his classes.

The email started out with _Good evening Mr Park,_ and morphed to _thank you for speaking out on topics that no one else dares to talk about; thank you for being truthful and striving towards positive change_ , and ended with _I don’t know if I will ever be able to live freely, but I will try to no longer be ashamed of who I am_. It wasn’t much but it was a start. It was a reaffirmation that Seonghwa had done the right thing. It was a form to alleviate the pain in Seonghwa’s heart, the fear that crawled up his body late at night; it was a form of therapy to everything he had gone through, knowing he helped someone with their own pain and insecurity. It was a reaffirmation Seonghwa had done the right thing when he had moved to this city almost five years ago, homeless, heartbroken, lost, depressed, hopeless.

He looked up at the stars that night — he couldn’t see them but he knew they were there — in the direction where Cassiopeia was, and began talking to the constellation. It was childish he supposed, but it had been Yunho’s favorite constellation. He always had said, jokingly, if there was a place after death that he would want to go to it would be Cassiopeia, so Seonghwa pretend that was where Yunho was now.

He told the stars all about the change Yunho was casting, years later, from those simple conversations they had shared five years ago under The Bridge, when all Seonghwa had had in mind was knowing more about Hongjoong, but instead had ended up with a lot more knowledge than his brain could have handled then.

He told the stars up above all about the young people Yunho was helping even if he was so far away.

Seonghwa didn’t believe in coincidences, not anymore; hadn’t for a long time.

When he walked into the teachers’ private canteen, plastic container of food in one hand and coffee cup in the other, ready to sit down in quietness and away from the students in the cafeteria, he didn’t expect much. It was his first year teaching in that high school and he wasn’t all that familiar with the other teachers, the secretaries, and the Dean. He barely had talked to any of them, he didn’t hide his sexuality — he didn’t proclaim it loudly either, but he had fought hard to get a place as a teacher in this school so he wasn’t going to hide it — and it was definitely something that added to his lack of friendships with his colleagues. He didn’t particularly care much about it, he had learned five years ago just what it meant to out himself and choose freedom. Danger and solitude too. He had learned long ago how lonely a life like his could be, but he wouldn’t change it, not after all he had gone through.

He wouldn’t throw away all that pain, the hardships, and the struggle only to make some meaningless friendships that wouldn’t truly last.

So when Seonghwa walked into the private canteen, he didn’t expect anything life changing to happen. He didn’t expect to run into a tall, young person with short, silky black hair, thick rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of their nose. A nose that was painfully familiar. He didn’t expect to run into Mingi, of all people, in the private teachers’ canteen on his fifth day of teaching at this high school.

Seonghwa didn’t believe in coincidences.

The way Mingi’s eyes widened in horror, surprise, shock, relief, and so many more emotions when Seonghwa let the door fall shut behind him was a reminder that coincidences didn’t happen, at least not in Seonghwa’s life.

“ _Shit_ ,” Mingi let out, dropping their mug of coffee. It crashed onto the floor where the mug split into dozens of pieces and its content spilled all over the gray carpet. Mingi didn’t seem to mind as they rushed forward to sling their arms around Seonghwa’s shoulders, and hugged him tightly, almost making him drop his own cup of coffee and plastic container. “ _Shit_ , Seonghwa?”

“ _Mingi_ ,” he mustered out, breathless and tears welling up in his eyes. It had been too long and not long enough at the same time since his past, because seeing Mingi just made the memories crash back as if it had happened the day before. “Mingi, what are you doing here?”

When Mingi pulled away, their own tears spilling out of their eyes and sliding down their cheeks, they took in some deep breaths, calming themselves down and searching Seonghwa’s face.

“I’m a TA here. I graduated last year and decided to stick around for a while as I figure out what exactly I want to do next,” they explained. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“I’m a teacher. I—I teach Human Rights, Ethics and Morals,” he stuttered out, feeling the uneasiness come to him. Mingi’s face contorted for a moment into a mask of pain, but it vanished quick enough and they forced out a smile. “I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s—It’s cool. It’s cool that you are doing something, and that you’re doing good,” Mingi said, their voice shaky, stumbling over their words.

It was awkward and there was so much more the two wanted to say, so much they wanted to ask, to discover, but they both held back, unsure how the other would react if they brought up the haunting past.

“So,” Mingi began again, their voice calmer and less shaky. “Do you want to eat dinner together sometime? There’s this really cool restaurant I’ve been meaning to check out.”

Seonghwa hesitated for a split second. Was he ready to let his past back in?

“ _Sure_.”

Seonghwa didn’t believe in coincidences and he knew things wouldn’t be the same from that moment on.

It took them a while to reconnect, to talk about the events that had happened all those years ago, to speak about how they had dealt with it all, how they had coped, and how they had ended up being where they found themselves now. In the green city. It wasn’t easy visiting the past, but at least Seonghwa wasn’t doing it alone and the person by him understood his pain and shared it more than anyone else could.

Seonghwa was brave and ended up telling Mingi all about how he had tried to begin his third year at university in the gray city, but ultimately had failed and ended up dropping out after the winter semester, struggling to keep himself alive in between the high costs of the hostel he had been staying at and the guilt eating him away. He told Mingi all about how had moved away from the gray city to the green city. How he had struggled to find a job so he could find a place to live at, how he had begged the university to accept his application form for the third year (even if he had technically dropped out and that had meant for him to restart from year one, without all the qualifications he had gotten already); and how that fight had taken on for months until finally, a year after he had first dropped out, they had accepted him back in and had let him continue his studies from where he had left off — he had written countless letters to his old university, had called them to talk to the Dean. He even had considered traveling back to personally talk to the superiors, but thankfully it hadn’t come that far.

(Seonghwa wasn’t sure how he would have felt about having to go back to the familiar gray city, where everything would remind him of the main source of his nightmares and his pain.)

He then told Mingi about his graduation two years later, how he had immediately moved on to do his masters so he could become a teacher and about the speech he had held once he had been officially and thoroughly done with _all_ his studies. Mingi’s eyes widened as Seonghwa explained he’d themed the speech around his life as a gay student and the lack of protection he’d had, and the discrimination he had faced. He ended his story with where he was now: in his first year as a teacher in high school.

Mingi was brave as well and told him all about how they had grieved Yunho’s death (still did on most days), but had ended up finding the strength to carry on and allow themselves something better than working at a bar during the night and in a grocery shop during the day. Mingi told him about how they had applied to university in the gray city and had worked their ass off to graduate as an honor student while simultaneously working part time so they could keep living in a flat with Jongho, pay the bills, feed themself and Jongho. Mingi told Seonghwa about how Jongho had dropped out of university — throwing away in the process all his hard work of graduating school early and getting accepted into university as a seventeen year old. He had thrown it all away and had begun to lose hope.

Mingi then explained to Seonghwa, with tears spilling out of their eyes, the events of that one fateful night, half a year after Yunho’s death, when Jongho had ran away. How he had completely vanished, only leaving behind a series of numbers that Mingi still had no clue what they were supposed to mean (they had tried phone number, coordinates, address, bank account). Mingi didn’t mention any of their other old friends. Maybe because they didn’t know what had happened to them or maybe because they couldn’t bear talking about them, or maybe they didn’t want to upset Seonghwa. Whatever the reason was, Seonghwa wasn’t sure if he was grateful for it or not.

* * *

**October 26, 2024, 5 years, 2 months, 5 hours, and 23 minutes:**

_Sometimes I like to imagine you live somewhere a lot closer to me than I know,_

_because the thought of you being so far away suffocates me at night_

It all came crashing back one evening.

It was the first day it rained after summer, it was the first _much_ _colder_ day after the long and tiring summer. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the day, at least not that Seonghwa had noticed or that he had been aware of.

He had woken up like he did any other Friday, at 5 in the morning, taken a shower, and then had prepared himself coffee in his small kitchenette, opening the window wide open to hear the birds sing outside.

He’d watched the green city slowly wake up.

By 6:15am, he’d left his flat, pushing open the fence that surrounded the small garden outside the apartment block — the flowers now dead. He had biked all the way to the school in the midst of morning traffic, and had arrived at exactly 6:30am with enough time to get another coffee by the cafeteria and prepare the 8am class.

It had been a day like any other day, like any other Friday.

_But then it wasn’t anymore._

It wasn’t anymore because Seonghwa had walked inside the familiar grocery store, the one that was five minutes from his flat — small, cozy, and with everything he needed. The owners had become polite yet awkward acquaintances to him, often exchanging small words about this and that (the weather, the news, the construction work happening around the corner where a brand new gym was supposed to open soon). It was amicable, and the older lady by the cash register would often slide a chocolate bar in Seonghwa’s bag, telling him he was too skinny and needed more fat on his bones if he wanted to find a good wife. Seonghwa would laugh awkwardly, with a strain in his crinkles, and swat his hands around the air, as if dealing with an irritating fly, rushing out of the store. He would eat the bar on his way home though.

That Friday his interactions with the shop owners had been no different from usual, everything the same, like any other time he visited the shop.

_But then it wasn’t anymore._

It wasn’t anymore because Seonghwa was inside the shop and his eyes fell on the wall behind the cash register where magazines, tabac, and other random products were displayed on the shelf. He let his eyes read the different articles on the newspapers, and studied the different covers of the magazines, like he always did when he waited for the customer in front of him to be done paying.

His body reacted a lot quicker than his mind did. The basket with his purchases slipped out of his fingers and dropped onto the dirty tiled floor with a loud crash, but it sounded muted to him, the noise of the radio playing in the shop disappeared, the voice of the shop owner asking him if he was okay was muffled and distorted.

Seonghwa’s eyes were on the all too familiar face of a young man, who was smiling at him from the cover of a magazine with his eyes bright, crinkled, and a smile so big it hurt Seonghwa. He had seen that smile on some rare occasions, five years ago, before it all went down the drain. He knew that smile so well, he knew how charming and beautiful it was when it was right in front of one. He knew what that smile sounded like, he knew what would happen after the smile — he knew how to make that smile appear in the first place. But there it was on the cover of some music magazine, directed at the lens of a camera, for hundreds or thousands — or however many people — to see.

“Sir? Are you all right?” the shop owner asked him as the customer that had been checking out walked out of the store, throwing weird glances over their shoulder at Seonghwa. “You look pale, sweetie,” she said, worried, and peered at Seonghwa’s face, searching and making sure he was okay.

“I’m, ah, fine. I just need that magazine.” He pointed at where Hongjoong was staring at him from the wall. “I would like to purchase it,” he said and finally snapped out of it, picking up his basket and heaving it up to the check out. The shop owner raised her eyebrows, but moved to grab the magazine, and put it on top of the mountain of objects. “Thank you,” he said, giving her his best fake smile.

(She put two chocolate bars into the bag that day.)

Seonghwa walked to the small park that was on the way to his apartment block, and sat down on one of the empty benches, eating one of the chocolate bars as he pulled out the magazine, flipping through it until he found the article about Hongjoong.

Kim Hongjoong, stage name _ATZ._ He was a rising artist, going from being an underground musician to perform on bigger stages, moving teenagers all around with his story and his battles and his past. Seonghwa swallowed and read through the article, there wasn’t a single mention of Yunho, of Seonghwa, of any of them. There wasn’t a single mention of Hongjoong being gay. There wasn’t a single mention about _anything_.

He flipped to the next page and there were a couple of pictures, one of them had Hongjoong standing on a balcony, behind him spread out a city that Seonghwa had grown quite familiar with over the past years. The green city. The bottom of the photography read, _ATZ enjoying the view from his penthouse_. Seonghwa swallowed down the knot that had appeared in his throat, he fought back the tears and looked up, towards the neighborhood where all the richer people resided, with their polished apartments and houses. Their nice cars and clean streets. It was about a twenty minute bike ride away from Seonghwa’s own apartment block.

They had been so close. _So fucking close_. And yet so incredibly far away at the same time.

Seonghwa finished the chocolate bar and threw the wrapper into the trashcan next to the bench, he glanced one last time at Hongjoong’s face smiling at him from the printed out pictures in the magazine, and threw it into the trashcan as well.

* * *

> _Kim Hongjoong (25), known better through his stage name_ ATZ _, has dropped his first official EP half a year ago,_ **‘** RiverLights’ _, where he speaks about struggling with depression while growing up and about his fears of following his dreams and becoming a musician. It’s authentic and full of raw pain._ AZT _offers a refreshing change from other musicians, although his songs speak about his struggles and his hardships throughout the years to where he is now, how everything he is now is a product of what he went through, off stage he is a reclusive and shy person. Kim Hongjoong is a normal man living in his penthouse alone, taking online classes to graduate from university after he put it on hold at age twenty for personal reasons._
> 
> _Although his stage persona is strong, imposing, intimidating, and tells a story full of pain and sorrow, Kim Hongjoong is quite different, not speaking much of those struggles or about his personal life, claiming it’s boring and there isn’t much to tell. He lives alone, no girlfriend; he visits his parents occasionally for the holidays and hangs out with friends from time to time. But his main focus, as he told us, is his music and he is already working on his next EP which he hopes could become a full album._
> 
> _(There’s a hint towards music videos being shot for some of the singles from_ **‘** RiverLights’ _)._
> 
> _All in all Kim Hongjoong is quite like a paradox, with his on stage persona singing rawly and emotionally about the difficulties of dealing with a mental illness; singing angrily and passionately about the pain of his past, like a cry for help that the audience is there to catch; and the chill man away from the stage, the fans, and the cameras who just hangs around in his flat wearing pajamas and drinking strange cocktails, who owns an entire shelf full of small Labrador figurines._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was very nervous posting this fic bc it's riddled with personal thoughts and feelings, and although it was written long ago and so much has changed since then for me, i tried to preserve the old writing style (minus the typos lmao),, but i'm really glad to have dug this out and reread it, and now to be posting it!! 
> 
> thank you for reading!!^^
> 
> -jack💛


	3. Chapter 2: Familiarity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello again!!!
> 
> hope you enjoy this chapter, there's a lot of angst and healing in this!!
> 
> it might take a while for the last bit to come out as it's the only one i never finished completely, but it's not very long so it shouldn't take too long!!

They met the second time in November 2024, ghosts of who they wanted to be. Amirror to each other of the aftermath of the tragedy, the cruel reminder of how fleeting life could be; but they met and they found back to one another, and saw a future with each other.

**November 5, 2024, 5 years, 2 months, 9 days, 13 hours and 55 minutes:**

_Even after all this time the memory of you is burned in my mind,_

_In my soul_

Hongjoong knocked on the door repeatedly, his hand was flat on the wooden material and his finger was tapping it lightly in sleep deprived annoyance. The small name plaque next to the door read _Choi_ in messy handwriting. It was ridiculous considering that San was a model on his way to national fame, but over the years he had been living in the apartment block he never once thought about changing the name plaque to something more adequate, leaving the same one he had gotten when he first had moved in and all his money had gone into paying for rent.

The door opened after a while ( _finally_ , Hongjoong thought to himself unamused as his stomach grumbled loudly) and in the trespass stood a sleepy looking San in a sweater and tight jeans, his dyed silver hair was still wet and messy, in his right hand he was holding a baby blue beanie, in the left hand his wallet and keys.

“Good morning,” he greeted Hongjoong with a badly concealed yawn and stepped out of his apartment, shutting the door behind himself softly. “Sorry,” he apologized meekly once he took in Hongjoong’s bad attempt at getting dressed, and his sleep deprived state. “Jongho and I stood up late brainstorming and stuff.” He yawned again as the two made their way over to the elevator of the residence.

“You’re paying,” Hongjoong grumbled, cranky, and jabbed his finger at the button next to the elevators in an annoyed manner. “Doesn’t Jongho have classes today? What’s he staying up so late for?”

“He needed help for one of his projects,” San explained with a shrug, he still looked apologetic for making Hongjoong wait at 5:45am. It had been San’s idea to wake up early so they could get coffee before they headed to their agency together, and worked on the music video for one of Hongjoong’s songs. But together with the apologetic look in his eyes there was amusement as well at Hongjoong’s obvious disgruntled mood, at some point San had just learned to deal with it and not take it too seriously. “The end of his first trimester is approaching and that means projects upon projects. You should know, you’re taking classes as well.”

“But I worked ahead, and besides, online classes are a lot different from actually going to university,” he replied as the door of the elevator opened. They stepped inside, the janitor shot them a polite smile, the bags underneath his eyes heavy with sleeplessness.

Hongjoong could relate to it.

He had started working on countless new tracks and on most nights they kept him awake until early in the morning, sometimes he didn’t even have time to go to bed as dawn cracked and he had a whole schedule ahead of himself. There was no time for sleep. But even if it meant for him that he didn’t have time to rest, he wouldn’t change it for the dread he had been going through before.

He was _living_ again, he was _dreaming_ again. He was doing what he always wanted to do so if he had to sacrifice sleep then so be it. He wouldn’t change it for anything. He wouldn’t change sleep for staying holed up in his childhood bedroom back at his parents’ house, staring at the world outside as he rotted away in isolation.

He had been living in this city for a bit over three years, at first living in some ratty apartment with barely functioning electricity, where the warm water would only come after a twenty minute wait, but Hongjoong hadn’t had much money back then to waste water so the showers were kept short and merely served to wash his hair and his body, spending a good amount of time bundled up in his towel to warm himself up again. Thankfully, San had let him come over to shower on some occasions, but Hongjoong hadn’t taken him up on the offer too often because he didn’t want to be pitied or be a bother to his friend. Even if it had been San’s idea for Hongjoong to move there, San had already taken in a friend of his, and Hongjoong hadn’t wanted to add to the pile of lost and stray young men his childhood friend apparently had been keen on taking care of.

It had come as a huge surprise to Hongjoong to know that it was Jongho who was living with San. When Hongjoong had first walked through the door of San’s apartment, three years ago, coming face to face with Jongho, looking as shell shocked as Hongjoong had felt, the phone he had been holding slipping out of his hand and crashing on the floor (thankfully not breaking), had been a lot for Hongjoong to take in.

Jongho had explained that he had dropped out of university and lost all hope in life, and when he had visited his parents new house during his birthday in October 2019, San had been there. The two had caught up and San had invited Jongho to come along with him to the green city. It had taken him quite some time to convince Jongho, but finally the younger had agreed, packing his few bags again and leaving the gray city. It had taken San even more convincing and talking for Jongho to pick up his studies again in a private art university, but finally, half a year later, the younger had once again agreed and applied to university anew.

Hongjoong and San walked out of their apartment block and to the small coffee shop around the corner, that opened at 6am. The bell chimed above their heads as San opened the glass door, the employee behind the counter looked up, price tags in her hands; she smiled when she recognized them and placed the tags on the counter as she got started on their regular drinks.

They sat down by the windows, on the rack that displayed newspapers and magazines, Hongjoong spotted the magazine he had done the interview for, it was elevated from the rest of the magazines and he felt embarrassment as well as pride shoot up his spine.

San let out a laugh when he saw it.

“Seems like it’s getting you recognition, huh?” He discarded his beanie on the table, passing a hand through his hair, trying to make something out of the wet mess, but it was to no avail, his hair had already decided to stand up in different directions.

“Seems so,” Hongjoong grumbled out.

“Oh, come on, this is the life you chose.”

“I know, but it’s just still all very new to me and kind of uncomfortable.”

Only one year ago, Hongjoong still had been an unknown musician living in a smelly and humid apartment at the other side of the city where drug dealers lingered at every street corner and needles covered the floor, cigarette butts scattered around as well as glass bottles that stood next to the overflowing trash cans. And there he was now living in a penthouse in the wealthier part of the city with a signed record deal, his EP doing well on the charts, his songs getting played in the well known radio channels, and a tour around the corner. Not a big one, only for a couple of weeks and most venues weren’t sold out and rather small, but it was _something_.

(Still, those loveless streets never left him alone. Sometimes he missed them. Sometimes he missed the gray city, the river and its lights, The Bridge’s concrete on which he’d sat on for hours. A face, a name that he missed. People he dreamed of that he’d long lost.)

The rise to success had been sudden and, although wanted, very unfamiliar and stressful to him. Suddenly his agency demanded more songs than he could produce, requesting all his free time to fill it up with a schedule of interviews, photoshoots, filming for some TV programs; and on his free days, like it was on this Tuesday, he was on his way over to the agency to see how far they were in planning out the music video and to see if there was a way he could help with. He wanted it to be as much of his style as possible.

The thing about his stage persona, _ATZ_ , was that it was all raw and real (or as real as possible, as real as he was allowed to). That was his selling point: the emotions he had put into his songs. It had been what had gotten him to rise as a musician, until San had convinced his entertainment company to attend one of Hongjoong’s stages. The rest was history: the company had immediately understood the incredible stage persona Hongjoong had created and the impact he had made in such a short amount of time.

Even if he was on the way to getting better and letting go of his past, the wounds were still open after all these years and there wasn’t a night were he could go to bed without making himself a drink to sleep peacefully — _dreamlessly_. His past still haunted him, though he had gotten quite good at blocking it out, focusing merely on his work and his classes, but on some nights the memory of Yunho came to visit him, the ghost of Seonghwa’s laughter echoed through the empty and big penthouse.

His past story that he was reminded of every time he saw Jongho, even if the younger man didn’t look much like the scrawny and shy teenager he once had been. Jongho held himself with confidence these days and his hair was a lighter shade of brown now, his shoulders were broader and his body was covered in muscles, all thanks to the working out him and San did, all thanks to the dance classes he had picked up two years ago — but even that was a bitter tasting reminder of the summer days five years ago, when Hongjoong would sit in the dance studio Seonghwa had practiced choreographies in.

They never talked about it and they both tried their best at avoiding each other, obvious that they were reminders of what had happened that one summer, of what they once _were._ Just as much as it pained Hongjoong to look at Jongho and be reminded of it all, Hongjoong was just as much of a painful reminder to Jongho, even if now he had dyed blue hair and he wasn’t as outspoken as he once had been, choosing to rather keep his opinions and thoughts to himself. They both had changed so much, but they were still Hongjoong and Jongho who once had met, over seven years ago, in _La Naranja_ , in a street that was neglected and avoided by the general public because it was for those that society wasn’t quite ready to accept and welcome.

They still were Hongjoong and Jongho that had stood with cheap rental suits on a sunny day by Yunho’s grave at the cemetery.

“Americano with a spoon of sugar, and caramel macchiato with an extra shot of caramel,” the employee announced as she placed their drinks on the counter in front of them. “By the way,” she started hesitantly, eyes shifting up to Hongjoong’s in a shy manner, “I’m a big fan of your music. It’s really, um, close to my heart what you talk about,” she disclosed and shot him an even more hesitant smile, unsure if her compliment was out of place or wanted. Hongjoong couldn’t blame her, his morning annoyance was intimidating and not easy to understand as such.

Most people thought he was rude and arrogant and constantly in a bad mood, but Hongjoong was just a tired man, not made for mornings, and with way too many scars around his heart to be able to discard them every time someone tried to approach him for something. So he dealt with the rumors around him despite that they weren’t all that true.

San subtly kicked him in his shin and Hongjoong let a smile transform his face, it was tired and maybe it only partially reached his eyes, but it wasn’t the fan’s fault, she was, after all, the reason why he had made it so far. He was thankful, of course, but he was also still cautious and couldn’t stop himself of wondering if he were to out himself, would she still stand there, telling him that she was a fan.

Hongjoong shook all his insecurities away in favor of thanking her for her support, deciding to rid himself of his insecurities and self loathing. The employee gave another shy smile, then she left again to stand behind the counter, and resumed her task of putting the price shields up before the first hoard of guests came in. 

Fifteen minutes later, San and Hongjoong left the café again to take San’s car so they could drive over to the company. They walked the short distance back to their apartment block, but instead they entered the gray door that led to the garage. Hongjoong waited as San unlocked the door, and looked around himself: more and more people joined in on the streets in the morning traffic, students walked on the pavement alone or in groups to their schools. He watched as the early birds sang and sat on thin tree branches.

The trees that were slowly but surely losing more and more leaves, covering the pavement in orange and yellow, and he thought back to that one day.

It was inevitable by now, his life was tainted, every year when he would see the leaves turn orange and then fall from their places, he was reminded of that train ride he had taken back home after Yunho had died, and after he had broken Seonghwa’s heart. He wasn’t sure when that resentment towards fall and winter would ever leave ( _if_ _ever_ ), but for him it was just something he associated with the worst time of his life.

For his whole life the falling of the leaves would remind him of the time he had lost his best friend, the love of his life, and how he had broken his own heart, shattered it with a hammer only he had held.

He let out a sigh, shaking his head, forcing these thoughts out of his head, forcing himself to stay in the present, and ignored the trees around him, the orange blanket over the floor. He hoped it would snow that winter, he hoped everything would turn white and muffled and dream like. It hadn’t snowed in six years and he missed it. 

Hongjoong was about to look back in front of him, step inside the garage with San as his friend had unlocked the door and was pushing it open, but in the distance, walking up the street, he spotted a figure. The man was dressed in a black hoodie, skinny jeans hugging his legs nicely, and a baseball cap covering most of his face, but Hongjoong was able to catch a glimpse of the stranger’s lips. They were kind of heart shaped, they were a pale red, they were so similar to lips Hongjoong once had kissed, desperately and full of love. Lips he couldn’t quite get out of his head.

But that was impossible, Seonghwa wasn’t here, that would be…

“Hongjoong, are you coming?” San asked, holding open the door and giving him a questioning look.

Hongjoong turned away from the stranger, who was now waiting at an intersection for the traffic light to change colors.

“Yes, sorry.” He walked inside the gray and smelly staircase that led to the different garage levels.

The two of them walked down a flight of stairs, to where their vehicles were parked, and the younger of the two walked over to his black Kia, unlocking it from the distance with his high tech keys. Hongjoong walked over to the passenger seat, lost in his thoughts still, the figure having shaken him up, but when San turned the key in the ignition, the car filling up with pop music, loud and startling both of them, Hongjoong was brought back to the present. The present where he lived away from his past mistakes.

Away from his past, period.

* * *

**November 9, 2024, 4 days, 5 hours, 4 minutes:**

_I resent you but I too do wish to see you again, even if it’s just the ghost of you_

Seonghwa couldn’t believe he actually had seen Hongjoong, in flesh.

The man that he was now, the man that he had become throughout all those years that they had been separated. Seonghwa had been too scared to approach him, too scared to do anything besides stare at him from the distance, hiding his face (his identity) behind the cap he had been wearing. He knew that Hongjoong had seen him, at least it had seemed so, because Hongjoong had stopped and stumbled in his movements, eyes set on where Seonghwa had stood by the intersection. 

Seonghwa wasn’t even sure what had moved him to go there so early in the morning, before work had started, but that morning he had felt a pull — like a magnet, like a voice from above — urging him that _he had to go there_. He had go to the neighborhood again. Even if the two other times he had lingered around the polished streets, he had not seen any sign of Hongjoong. But that morning he had woken up from a distressing night full of nightmares — retellings of past events — bathed in cold sweat and his lungs constricted. And all he had been able to think about had been Hongjoong (and how much he missed him). Without even being conscious of his actions he had ended up walking, when the sky had been still dark and full of stars, again to the wealthy part of the town, and to his surprise he had caught glimpse of two figures walking down the street.

He hadn’t paid them much attention at first, ready to cross the intersection and maybe go to the open coffee shop to get a drink, but then he had looked at them a second time, for some reason. It really had felt as if again a voice from above — something or _someone_ — had told him to wait and _really_ look at the two figures. And he had done just that. 

It had been strange, the way, in between the other people that were slowly appearing on the streets, that his mind had fixated on those two figures in particular. It had been out of a movie, the way that, even before he had properly caught a glimpse of Hongjoong’s face, time had already slowed down, leaves had fallen slower from the trees, and the people had walked slower. _Everything_ in slow motion. And then Hongjoong had turned around, and even if there had been a street in between them, Seonghwa was sure their eyes had met. His heart had stopped for a fraction, his breath catching in his lungs, and there had been a storm brewing up in his chest, paralyzing him from moving.

For what had seemed an eternity they just had stared at each other, and for a moment Seonghwa had forgotten everything that had happened in between them. He had been thrown back to the first time he had met Hongjoong — in _La Naranja_ by that one street in the gray city, that he didn’t have any desire going back to. Seonghwa still remembered the way his heart had fluttered when he first had encountered Hongjoong five years ago, the way he had thought how pretty the other had looked, how he had felt his feelings towards men reaffirmed after setting his eyes on Hongjoong. The way Hongjoong’s lips curved, his smooth skin, his small nose, his back then black hair falling effortlessly and messily over his eyebrows.

When Seonghwa had stood at that intersection he had been reminded of how it had been like to fall in love with Hongjoong for the first time, but he had been reminded as well how it had been like to get his heart broken by Hongjoong for the first time.

And then the moment had been over, Hongjoong’s friend had said something and Hongjoong had looked away, breaking the spell — the moment — and time had returned to its usual speed. The orange leaves had touched the pavement, the people had taken their next step, and the light across from Seonghwa had turned green, but he hadn’t crossed the street. He had walked back from where he had come from. His heart too unsettled and hurt.

He still had gone to school to teach, but the whole day he had been distracted, even Mingi had noticed, although they had not pushed him to reveal what was wrong with him, just had kept him comfortable company.

Seonghwa found himself back at the same intersection that day, although it was in the afternoon now; he had already finished work and should be at home, reviewing the content for the classes the following day, but his heart had pulled him back to the place, hoping to see Hongjoong again just as much as he hoped it had been an illusion, four days ago, that he had run into Hongjoong.

He walked to the café he had seen the other morning and entered it; after ordering his drink he sat down by the window, his eyes momentarily caught a glimpse of a magazine peeking out from the rest of newspapers and magazines, Hongjoong’s face smiling from it, and Seonghwa let out a stuttering breath. He wasn’t sure how well he could handle seeing _that_ _smile_ , that he knew so well, not directed at him, instead at the whole world. It was strange. 

The barista came up to him holding his drink, the shop was mostly empty, some people sat outside and enjoyed the last rays of sunshine (summer had dragged out for a lot longer than the previous years), and when she saw him staring at the magazine she let out a smile, it was rather shy but proud.

“Are you a fan as well?” she asked, setting down the drink on the wooden surface in front of Seonghwa.

“Excuse me?”

“ _ATZ_ , are you a fan of his music?” she asked again, her smile faltering. 

“Oh.” Seonghwa swallowed, glancing at the picture on the magazine. He forced out a smile. “I haven’t heard his stuff. He just reminds me of someone I used to know.” 

She must have noticed the sadness or anger in his voice because her smile disappeared and she bit her lip nervously, her arms coming to rest behind her back. “Ah, sorry, then, I didn’t mean to pry… Well, anyway, enjoy your coffee and stay,” she ended up saying and moved back to stand behind the counter. 

Seonghwa shot one last look at Hongjoong’s face before he settled his gaze to the street outside the window, to the people walking around and the cars passing by — to the life unravelling around him. The life that had been there to shape Hongjoong for however long it had been that he had lived there already, the life that had been around Hongjoong for all the time Seonghwa hadn’t.

Although Seonghwa felt lingering anger — anger that had dissipated over the years of concentrating on his own life (his up and downs) and with the absence of Hongjoong — now that his ex lover was back again in his life that anger had flared up, but it wasn't like it had been up on the hill when he had walked away from Hongjoong. It was different and there was a part of him that wanted to forgive Hongjoong. To give him a second chance. 

All the pain he had been through, his heart still longed for that _something_ they had had for the duration of that summer five years ago.

Seonghwa was on his way over to a small café nearby the school building him and Mingi worked at. They often met for breakfast or lunch, a regular thing they had started to do now, but that day he had gotten a text from Mingi, saying they needed to talk to Seonghwa about something. 

He entered the café, the bell above the door jingled, and scanned the small room until he found Mingi, sitting by the back of the place, bouncing their leg and biting their thumb nervously. Seonghwa immediately knew there was something wrong, and he made his way over to his friend tentatively. Once he was close enough, Mingi’s head shot up and they gave Seonghwa a tense smile. 

“Hey,” Mingi greeted him, almost knocking over their coffee cup as they urged Seonghwa to sit down. “How are you?” 

They were acting strange, erratic, and Seonghwa frowned, sitting down opposite of them. “I’m good, thanks. You don’t seem to be doing so good… What’s going on, Mingi?” 

“I, um, have an offer for you, but I don’t know if you…” They jerked in their seat, their fingers twitching. They cleared their throat and moved their hands to rest in their lap. 

“Mingi, just tell me. It’s fine.” 

Even as he said that, he knew that it most likely wasn’t going to be fine, whatever it was it was going to be extremely upsetting. Seonghwa took in a breath at the same time as Mingi let out a distressed sigh. 

“I know you probably don’t want to come and I—Okay, _shit_ , listen, Seonghwa,” Mingi stuttered out and leaned back into their seat, letting their hands fall into their lap. Their coffee cup was half empty and stood abandoned on the table, it was probably cold by now. Mingi’s breakfast was pretty much in the same state, forgotten and half eaten. “I got these _concert tickets_ and I was wondering if you want to come along and—” 

“Hey, take a deep breath; what are you trying to tell me?” Seonghwa interrupted his friend, intertwining his fingers and resting his hands on the table, and gave Mingi a quizzical look. It was very out of character for Mingi to be _so out of it._

“I got tickets to a concert,” they finally spilled out, voice very high pitched, rushed, and words stumbled. 

“Okay?” 

“Not just any concert, _Hongjoong’s_ concert.”

The silence that followed was deafening and Seonghwa tightened his grip, his knuckles turning white, and then unlinked his hands to let them rest flatly atop the table. He swallowed, licked his lip, and fixed Mingi with a carefully blank look. 

“You _knew_ Hongjoong lived here?” 

“No... Yes? For about,” they double tapped the screen on their phone which laid on the table, “ten days now. I’m sorry. _I’m_ _sorry_ , Seonghwa.” 

“ _Shit_.” Seonghwa loosened his grip until he let go completely and leaned back into his seat. He stared at Mingi, unsure what exactly he could say in that moment; what there was to say. “ _Shit_ , Mingi. You _knew_.” 

“Well, do you remember like two weeks ago, when I found a lead on the series of numbers Jongho left behind?” 

“Yes,” Seonghwa replied, not really understanding what that had to do with anything. 

“It ended up leading me to a street here in the green city, so I went to check it out. Turns out Jongho and Hongjoong live in the same building, not together, but they seem to have a common friend there or something,” Mingi explained, slowly, and avoided Seonghwa’s eyes. 

“You found Jongho and you _didn’t tell me_?”

“No, I haven’t found him yet. I just have a lead now. An actual clue on where he could be.” 

“ _Fuck_.” 

“I’m sorry.” There was silence again and Seonghwa looked at Mingi’s almost finished breakfast, his own threatened to rise up his throat. He felt nauseous. “I talked to him, you know. Hongjoong, I mean. We talked about what we are doing now and he wasn’t… He seemed _okay_ ,” Mingi told him, quietly, and avoided his eyes. 

Seonghwa swallowed and thought about that day up by the hill, when he had turned away and had walked back into the forest, sweat running down his back, the cheap dress shirt he had worn clinging to his skin. He thought about Hongjoong’s lack of words, the desperation in Seonghwa’s own words. He thought about how he had gotten back to the hostel, falling onto his bed and crying himself to sleep. He thought about the past week, by the intersection, when he had seen Hongjoong again for the first time after five years.

The musician sported dyed blue hair now and he looked so much more mature, but he had those same eyes still, the same soft lips. Somehow he had looked exactly like the Hongjoong Seonghwa had fallen in love with. 

Seonghwa swallowed, and looked up at Mingi. “Did he ask about me?” he asked, his voice quiet and weak. 

Mingi didn’t reply at first, just looked back but then they let out a long sigh, pushed back their fringe, that was slowly plastering onto their forehead, and their face twisted into something similar to a grimace. 

“No,” they replied carefully, licking their lips slowly and shooting Seonghwa a calculated look, gauging his reaction, so Seonghwa was careful in not showing how that truly made him feel. 

“I see,” he simply replied. Then his eyes found Mingi’s again. “So, Jongho…” 

Mingi let out a long sigh, almost as if they were relieved Seonghwa didn’t ask further about Hongjoong, and was instead changing the topic. Mingi was fiddling with their mug of coffee for while, thinking about their answer, then they lifted it carefully to swallow down the contents that remained in it, pulling a face. 

“The numbers he left me behind, they were the numbers for a color. A work colleague actually gave me the tip that it could be the number series for a color,” Mingi began explaining and Seonghwa listened with his utmost attention. “And so I tried out different things related to that number, and long story short, it ended up leading me to a street with the name of that color. A street in this city.” 

“What is it called?” 

“ _Oxford Blue Street_ ,” Mingi replied, a wistful smile on their face. “It’s like the color of the sky at nighttime.” 

Seonghwa thought back to the time they had spent, all together, five years ago, under the night sky. It was kind of ironic. 

“But you haven’t found Jongho yet?” he further inquired about their old friend. 

“No, but Hongjoong confirmed that Jongho lives in the building with a childhood friend of his,” Mingi explained. “I think the two of them don’t have a good relationship though—Hongjoong and Jongho.” 

“What makes you say that?” 

“It just seemed to me that they weren’t exactly—I don’t know how to explain it, but it was the same with how he reacted upon seeing _me_.” Seonghwa raised his eyebrows questioningly. “He was surprised, but not the good kind of surprised. Not how you reacted. It seemed more like Hongjoong was pained to see me,” Mingi admitted, frowning. “I think… I think we remind him _too much_ of back then. Who knows how he dealt with all of this throughout these years?” 

Seonghwa couldn’t blame Hongjoong for being guarded and taken aback upon seeing Mingi; for Seonghwa it had been quite the shock as well, and it had been hard to reconnect with his old friend at first, the painful memories crashing back. Everything he had tried so hard to put behind him had resurfaced when he had run into Mingi. Seonghwa had tried to remember the good things and move forward, taking what he had learned from Yunho that summer, what he had learnt about himself that summer, what he had learnt about friendships that summer; but when he had run into Mingi, seeing someone from that time, it had reminded him of how real everything had been.

It had reminded him that his heart was still healing from all the wounds that he had carried with him to this day. 

So Seonghwa couldn’t blame Hongjoong for being shocked and not wanting to really let the past back in. 

“Did he say something about Wooyoung?” Seonghwa asked then, memories of the short and handsome young man coming back like waves.

Waves in a stormy sea; he was on a boat trying to salvage what there was left of his, until then, ignorance towards his past, but it was no use as his past was swirling back into his life in the form of a storm. The waves crashed aboard his boat and he couldn’t do anything against them; he’d drown, or he’d survive the storm by staying strong and managing the boat during such a disastrous scenario.

Mingi shook their head, pressing their lips together and shutting their eyes close, and swallowed.

“I hope he is okay.” 

Seonghwa missed Wooyoung. They had become really good friends instantly, almost as if they’d been meant to meet — as if they’d met already in another life. Not a day passed where Seonghwa didn’t think about him, wondering what came to be of him and if he was doing well; or if Wooyoung ever thought back to that summer five years ago, if he ever even thought of Seonghwa. Of any of them. 

“I miss _him_ ,”Mingi said then in a hoarse whisper, their voice strained, and when Seonghwa looked at them, there was a sadness and longing in the younger’s eyes that made his heart clench. “He made me feel like _someone_. Like I was worth it, you know,” Mingi continued then and Seonghwa understood it wasn’t about Wooyoung anymore, it was about _Yunho_. His heart further clenched. He swallowed, but didn’t say anything, letting Mingi talk, letting them remember their past lover. “I miss him so much. I sometimes pretend he is still here, and I talk to him, ask him for advice. I wish I could have—” Their voice broke and they lowered their head, their fringe covering their eyes, but Seonghwa knew there were tears about to spill out of the younger’s eyes.

“Mingi,” he tried, but there was nothing he could say to make the pain lessen. “I talk to the stars when I miss him. You know in spring and summer, when Cassiopeia is up in the sky, I talk to the constellation because—” 

“Because it was his favorite,” Mingi finished for him, letting out a broken laugh. “Yeah, I remember. He would always point it out in between all the other constellations up in the sky.” 

“Yeah.”

* * *

Hongjoong had done concerts before, although in underground clubs that had been dirty and barely lit, with a crowd that hadn’t come _specifically_ for him, they’d just been there to enjoy some live music and get drunk or high on whatever drugs they sold there. It had been some time later that people had come to _see_ _him_ , but Hongjoong hadn’t exactly been paid much, the club owner had given him the same percentage as always, even if Hongjoong should have gotten way more as he had reeled in a majority of the guests. 

The concert that day wasn’t much different when it came to what he was supposed to do on stage, he had gotten used to that — the thrill, the crowd singing along, the possible mistakes he could do that made him anxious and fearful of failing and consecutively losing all of this — but these people, they came for _him_ and no one else, they paid to see him, to experience him and his songs, his body of work. And that was something Hongjoong still was getting used to. It hadn’t wholly reached him, yet, that he was making a name for himself and he was a rising star. He didn’t like the word star, he didn’t feel like one, he just felt like a broken man that was trying to deal with that hurt through music.

Heal through art.

Yunho would have been a star — Yunho _was_ a star. He would have outshone everyone on stage, but there was just Hongjoong now, singing their words alone, singing his own words and Yunho’s words because Yunho wasn’t there anymore to tell them himself, and Hongjoong felt as if it was important that they were _heard_. Yunho had had a way with words that was way too precious and true and raw to be unheard and forgotten. In a way, one could say, Yunho lived on through Hongjoong’s music. 

Hongjoong sat in his dressing room, staring at the mirror in front of him as the stylists were working on him for his stage look. It wasn’t much, really, no fancy clothings or make up, as Hongjoong had desired for it to be so, he wanted to appear as real as his music was, yet there was some basic make up to be applied and some styling put into his messy hair.

His concert was in almost three hours, but he had heard that fans had been queuing for hours, and soon, the ones with VIP passes, would be let inside to have a small meet and greet with him. At first Hongjoong had been against it, not liking that only those with money would get a chance to meet him, but his manager had insisted and told him that it was something artist did nowadays. Hongjoong hadn’t really had a chance to deny the suggestion, after all he was in contract with them and had to agree to most things they suggested (besides, it wasn’t something horrible they were making him do, just something unfair for those fans that didn’t bathe in money). 

Something he liked about those first underground concert, was that anybody had had access to them as there had been no entry fee. Now it was different, and he had to learn to deal with it. He was incredibly grateful for the success his fans had given him, but it still just felt _weird_. Fame was strange and new and scary, and Hongjoong was a creature of habit, he was breaking a lot of walls around himself for this and it wasn’t easy. 

“10 minutes,” announced one of Hongjoong’s team’s staff members. An intern called Hyejoo. She was competent and a quick learner from what Hongjoong had gathered. “Chan wants you out there as quick as possible. There was a delay already and we can’t waste any more time.” She gave him a nod through the mirror, to which Hongjoong just nodded back, his stylists stressing and quickly finishing the work they were doing on his hair. 

He was going to meet his fans, put a face to those that brought him there, get a close look at the kind of people that related and understood his music. It was thrilling as much as it was frightening. He couldn’t let go of the idea in the back of his mind that he wasn’t completely honest with his music, always holding back a piece.

Twenty minutes later he was walking alongside Chan and Hyejoo to the room he’d be meeting his fans in. His heartbeat was loud in his ears and his hands were shaking, even if he’d taken his anxiety meds this was on a level not even the little pills or his therapists could help with. Hyejoo grabbed the door’s handle and opened it, and Hongjoong saw a group of people of different ages stand in front of him, mumbling quietly.

He swallowed and entered the room, glancing briefly over the crowd, but too scared to make eye contact with any of them.

“If everyone could please stand in line,” Hyejoo ordered loudly and clapped her hands together to get the crowd to cooperate with her. 

They obliged and soon Hongjoong was already meeting his first fan: she was a young girl, probably around eighteen, and she looked starstruck as she approached him, her hands shaking just as much as Hongjoong’s own, and she blushed when he asked for her name. 

“Thank you so much,” she said, but Hongjoong should be the one expressing his gratitude. “Your music has helped through a really low point in my life, but I’m starting to do better,” she told him and he nodded.

“You’ve helped me through a low point in my life as well. Thank you, honestly.” He gave her a quick hug and bid his goodbye. She was escorted to the side of the room where a table was set up with merchandise and snacks.

Bit by bit, Hongjoong was meeting his fans, and the more he did the more relaxed he grew. He looked at the other people in the crowd, remembering he had invited Mingi to come — it had been in a strange spurt of courage, and he hoped that the younger would be there. It had been painful yet relieving to meet Mingi again after such a long time, and part of Hongjoong wished to make peace with his past so he could move on, or at least start to deal with it better, but there was so much that kept him from doing so. So much pain that tore through his body at night.

That pain that he brought with himself onto stage to let go of some of it. It was therapeutic to be on stage, but he knew that at some point he’d have to face it fully. 

Face Jongho. Face Mingi. Now that they were both at close distance. He’d just have to call them once he felt ready — he wished he did already. He missed them. He missed the unity, the familiarity, the comfort of that summer five years ago. 

Hongjoong spotted Mingi standing by the back of the row, the last one, and he felt relieved and a bit scared at the idea to meet Mingi again, to have them at his concert and see — _hear_ — that Hongjoong wasn’t over the events from five years ago.

Mingi noticed Hongjoong looking at them and gave him a small smile and a wave of their hand that Hongjoong returned. He was about to move on to his next fan when his eyes fell on the person that was accompanying Mingi, and his heart sunk. He felt short of breath. Surprise was an understatement, he was shocked beyond belief, and the guilt from that summer came back to him. The words he had said.

He still remembered Seonghwa’s retreating back into the woods, so vividly.

And there he stood, Seonghwa, five years later.

Hongjoong couldn’t believe they were looking at one another. He wanted to reach out, to touch the other, hug him and ask for forgiveness. He wanted to explain himself. He wanted to turn back time and take back his words. But that wasn’t how things went, he had to play it cool, keep it together and professional. He couldn’t let his past push him off the rails right now — later, in his penthouse, he could cry about it and get drunk.

He swallowed and looked away from Seonghwa, as much as it pained him, and welcomed his next fan, but he did glance over at Seonghwa a couple of times, scared that he wouldn’t be there anymore and Hongjoong was just imagining things. But Seonghwa was _really_ _there_. He didn’t look good, at least not in that moment. He looked far away, a distant look on his face, and Hongjoong’s heart hurt because it seemed as if Seonghwa hadn’t acknowledged him even if their eyes had met. 

Some time later it was finally Mingi and Seonghwa’s turn, and the former walked up cheerfully to Hongjoong, giving him a tight hug. 

“Look at you,” Mingi said with a bright smile. “This is unbelievable.” 

Hongjoong allowed himself to grin, to let go a bit of the pain of the past. “Yeah, it really is.”

“Gosh, I still remember how you and Yunho would talk about your lyrics. About how you two wanted to try this whole music business thing at some point in life. And here you are.” They moved their hands around, excitedly; but Hongjoong had seen the flash of hurt across Mingi’s face when Yunho’s name had fallen from their lips. 

“Here I am,” he echoed. He glanced at Seonghwa, but the other just stared at them without really seeing. “Um,” he started. “Hey, Seonghwa,” he greeted the other. 

Seonghwa blinked and looked at him, but didn’t acknowledge him further, just nodded, curtly. 

“I’m sorry,” Mingi apologized suddenly. “I thought it would be a good idea to bring him… But he’s been off since we came in here.” They grimaced, worry written across their face.

Hongjoong pressed his lips together, passing his tongue over them, and let out a sigh. “It’s fine, I don’t mind. I’ve—” He exhaled shakily, the tears burning, but he blinked them away. His stylists would kill him. “I’ve missed you,” he mumbled, glancing at Seonghwa. 

“He’s missed you too,” said Mingi in Seonghwa’s place. “Maybe not today, but some other day you two could…” They moved their hands in between the two, then shrugged, leaving the rest up to interpretation.

“Maybe.” Hongjoong hoped. He really did. 

“I’ll give you his number, all right?” Mingi offered, grabbing their phone and tapping around on it, then they showed it Hongjoong. 

“I—Okay, thank you.” He motioned at Hyejoo to come over. 

“What is it, Hongjoong?” she asked, curiously looking in between the three of them.

“Can you do me a favor and write down this number.” 

“Hongjoong…” She frowned, glancing at Chan, and bit her bottom lip. “I don’t think it’s wise to exchange numbers with fans. You barely just started your career and any weird scandals… Uh, no offense,” she directed that last bit at Mingi, looking guilty. 

“None taken,” Mingi promised her, a tight smile forming on their face. 

“Hyejoo, it’s fine, they’re an old friend of mine.” 

“Ah.” Hyejoo looked even more curious, but she offered a pen of hers and a piece of paper to Hongjoong so he could write down the number. “By the way, hate to say this, but the time’s up,” she told Mingi who nodded in response and walked away, grabbing Seonghwa’s elbow. 

“One more thing, Hyejoo,” Hongjoong said once he stored away Seonghwa’s number in his jeans. She hummed in response. “Can you tell Chan I have a request.” 

“Of course.” 

As Chan came walking over to Hongjoong, Hyejoo and another staff member were ushering the crowd out of the room to guide them back to where the seats were.

“What is it, Hongjoong?” Chan asked, stressed by the looks of it. 

“There’s something quick I need to do, it won’t take long, all right? Just don’t get mad.” 

“What are you talking about?” he asked, but Hongjoong walked over to the room’s door, his manager following him close by, grabbing his shoulder to stop him. “Hongjoong, you have an interview. There’s already a twenty minutes delay!” 

“This won’t take long. I promise.” He shook Chan’s hand off and stormed into the hallway. 

_Please_ , he thought, _please still be here_. 

He spotted Mingi and Seonghwa in the hallway, walking behind the crowd that was getting escorted out of the backstage area; they were at a fair distance of the other fans though, and Hongjoong decided to seize the opportunity. 

“Hongjoong!” Chan shouted, sounding angry now, but Hongjoong ignored him. “Hongjoong! Goddamn it!”

Hongjoong rushed over to his old acquaintances and with his heart beating loudly in his ears, deafening him, he moved into Seonghwa’s personal space and hugged him, grabbing his jacket tightly. He needed to know that he was real, that he was really here. That they both had met again, after all this time, as if it was destiny. 

Because Hongjoong couldn’t really imagine this to be a coincidence. He no longer believed in them. 

He let go just as quick as he had hugged him, Chan’s approaching footsteps louder than his heart, and with a quiet _goodbye_ he left Mingi and Seonghwa to stand perplexed in the hallway.

**November 24, 2024, 4 hours, 2 minutes:**

_Your voice sounded like a cry of help, one that I know all too well_

* * *

**December 26, 2024, 1 month, 2 days, 1 hour, 12 minutes:**

_These days I long for you more than ever, but I don't know how I feel anymore about you_

Seonghwa stood in the middle of the street, the day after Christmas, in his cozy and warm hoodie, staring up at the building Hongjoong lived in. He hesitated, not really knowing why he had even come there, why he even had walked out of his own flat, in the middle of the night — the coldest night of the year so far. But there he stood, with his hands inside the front pocket of his hoodie, wringing them together, nervousness radiating from every single on of his pores. He wanted to ring the doorbell, he wanted to see Hongjoong… 

Truth was that ever since they had met each other at Hongjoong’s concert a month ago, he hadn’t been able to stop the lingering anger in his bones, the emotional rollercoaster that plagued him for years. Everything had come crashing back and he wasn’t sure he really was ready to face it all, at least not yet. He thought he’d been ready, but during the meet and greet he had completely disassociated, only distantly hearing Hongjoong’s voice ( _I’ve missed you_ ), barely realizing Hongjoong had hugged him. Seonghwa had come back to his senses minutes into the concert, when Hongjoong’s raw emotions had shot deep into his bones, rattling him painfully awake.

Yet, at the same time, he had this strong urge to see Hongjoong, to hear how his voice had changed, how his laughter had changed, how his touch would feel now on Seonghwa’s skin. The way they had parted over five years ago had been harsh, it had been thoughtless, a mistake made when both of them had been overcome with emotions — overcome with _grief_. Seonghwa was one to give second chances, to hear Hongjoong out, to see where they could be at now, but it was wishful thinking too.

It was wishful thinking of him to assume that Hongjoong would still feel the same; that Hongjoong would still think of the nights they had shared that summer, of the kisses they had stolen of each other while they had been hidden away from the world. It was wishful thinking to assume that he was in a position to keep chasing the time, that was gone already.

It was wishful thinking to imagine Hongjoong would open the door that moment, clad in his pajama, holding a trash bag, and a winter coat slung over his shoulders, nose buried inside a thick scarf, but that was exactly what happened when the front door of the building suddenly opened, the light from inside lit up the dark street, blinding Seonghwa momentarily before the door slammed shut again. 

Hongjoong didn’t spot him right away, busy with not letting the trash bag fall onto the floor as he struggled with his keys, but he must have felt that someone was watching him because his eyes shot up then, and in the darkness he made out Seonghwa, standing paralyzed a few feet away from him, shaking in the cold. 

Their eyes met in the barely lit street, the only light came from behind the window inside the main door of the apartment block, and both of them froze in their movements. Their next breath caught in their lungs; their hearts took a leap, froze, and then continued beating, erratically. 

The world around them seemed to freeze as well, dropping in temperature, because from the sky fell a thick snowflake, and another one, another one, and _another._ It was snowing, softly and quietly. Seonghwa could hear, in the quietness, the snowflakes touching the pavement, falling onto his hoodie, settling into his hair.

“Seonghwa?” Hongjoong finally croaked out, his voice a mere whisper. He sounded unsure and scared, as if he knew but he needed a confirmation. As if he was scared of a confirmation. 

“Yes,” Seonghwa replied, unfreezing, and stepped forward, more into the light. More into Hongjoong’s personal space. He reached out and grabbed the trash bag from Hongjoong’s hands and walked over to the block’s garbage cans, disposing of it. Once he was back he hesitated, swallowed nervously, but finally said, “Merry Christmas?”

The snow was turning stronger, thicker, covering the streets, the pavement, the benches, the world around them. For some odd reason it seemed as if Hongjoong was unaffected, though, no snowflakes fell onto him, as if he was some sort of beacon of warmth and light, but then Seonghwa realized that part of the entrance’s roof was covering Hongjoong. 

Hongjoong smiled then, it was not a full smile, not like those that Seonghwa had gotten to know five years ago, but it was amused and soft.

“Yeah, Merry Christmas,” he said back, he looked up at the dark sky, from which the flocks were falling abundantly. “It’s snowing.” 

It felt as if time paused and reversed and Seonghwa was twenty-one again, when he had been so in love with Hongjoong, with the way his heart stuttered in his chest while he looked at the other. Hongjoong’s profile was lit up by the light from inside, and his coat swallowed him up, his blue hair like a halo above his head; he looked so cozy and so young, like he had back then almost, but Seonghwa was perceptive of the shadows under Hongjoong’s eyes as well, of the walls around him, the uncertainty in his eyes despite that he was looking softly at Seonghwa. 

Hongjoong was twenty-six, not twenty anymore, he was a different person, and above all he was the man who had broken Seonghwa’s heart all those years ago.

New Year’s Eve was a lonely time for Hongjoong: he didn’t particularly enjoy the company of his parents. They were proud of him now, happy that he was earning his money, and they liked to show off his success to their neighbors, but Hongjoong knew that they still had their problems with what he had chosen to do as a career. They liked the money, but they didn’t like the fact that he was earning it through music. And they were persistent about him finding a woman to marry, he was twenty-six after all, it was time he found himself someone to settled down with.

In the back of Hongjoong’s mind, at a very far away corner of his mind that he was far too scared to acknowledge, he saw Seonghwa.

After their random encounter the night after Christmas it was even harder to ignore his past, to ignore the images that came flooding in of Seonghwa and their time spent together. It had become hard to ignore the knowledge that deep down he still had feelings for Seonghwa, and that after all those years, he’d like to _try again_. He was open to, at some point in the future, fall in love with Seonghwa again. It scared him that Seonghwa’s presence was still so powerful and important to him; he hadn’t really been with anyone in the past five years, at first he had been too depressed to even think about being romantically or intimately involved with somebody, and then he had been too focused on his career to have time for anyone. And now, well, now Seonghwa was back and it felt as though the universe was mocking him. 

He sat on the rooftop of an old and abandoned building somewhere in the picturesque neighborhood him and Yunho had grown up in. It was past midnight, about half an hour into the new year already.

Hongjoong had left his parents’ house with the excuse to take a walk and think about his wishes for the upcoming year, but really he had needed to escape his parents’ environment. They had friends over, the daughter of one of them was around his age, and of course they had tried to push them together. Hongjoong had fled, naturally. She was incredibly nice and understanding when he had told her he wasn’t looking for anything, she’d confessed to him that she was still hung up on her ex so she wasn’t actually ready for a new relationship either. 

Hongjoong looked up at the sky: it was clear, and he could see some stars (no sight of Cassiopeia yet), but the sight of them just reminded him of that night up on the hill with Seonghwa and the others, and it hurt. Everything hurt. 

He had had five years of peace, trying his damn best to forget his past — the painful parts of it and Seonghwa — but recently it just kept coming back to him, as if demanding to be remembered; the pain demanding to be felt. And for the first time Hongjoong thought that maybe it was time to think about it, to talk about it with someone, maybe even with his therapist, and get help on how to overcome the trauma. But mostly he thought that perhaps it was time he talked to the people of his past, since they were all in close vicinity, and there wasn’t a better moment for it. But Hongjoong was hesitant. 

Hongjoong always had been hesitant. 

He was scared of getting hurt again, of being vulnerable, of letting those walls be torn down after he so carefully had built them. 

With a sigh he grabbed another beer can out of the six pack he had brought with him to the rooftop, set on getting pleasantly drunk, at least until his thoughts stopped hurting so damn much. Just for tonight he’d sedate his brain.

**From: unknown**

**January 1, 2025, 01:13 AM**

happy new year, Seonghwa 

**From: unknown**

**January 1, 2025, 01:15 AM**

i miss you

**To: unknown**

**January 1, 2025, 01:22 AM**

who is this?

**From: unknown**

**January 1, 2025, 01:24 AM**

Hongjoong

**To: unknown**

**January 1, 2025, 01:27 AM**

oh

happy new year, Hongjoong

**From: unknown**

**January 1, 2025, 01:27 AM**

thank you

sleep well

**To: unknown**

**January 1, 2025, 01:31 AM**

you too 

* * *

**January 10, 2025, 16 days, 6 hours, 2 minutes:**

_I didn't know I could miss you this much after everything_

It was amazing how quick peace could be broken with such a small and furtive meeting, but there he was thinking about Seonghwa more than he should, wondering what the other was doing — wondering _how_ he had spent all these years without Seonghwa there by his side. It was absurd how quick he had let himself be pulled back into the other’s light and smile. 

It had been around two weeks since he last had seen him: the image of Seonghwa standing underneath the snow, his watery smile, an unsure sparkle in his eyes, and the fact that _he had been there._ Hongjoong couldn’t get it out of his mind. He wanted to rewind time and tell the other how much he had missed him, how hard it had been to overcome the whole thing over the years, to deal with Yunho’s death, to deal with breaking Seonghwa’s heart so brutally, to get sedated with his parents’ wishes, and then to built himself all he had now out of nothing. Out of believing in fake hope. 

He had wanted to fall back into Seonghwa’s arms and pretend that it all hadn’t happened and they could be just how they had that summer almost six years ago, in the dusty and come down bar, the sunshine filtering in through the broken windows, the world in a state between sleeping and waking up. That small bubble where they had _existed_ , all together, enjoying freedom. He yearned it so much, but it was over. All he could think of when he remembered _La Naranja_ was Yunho’s fading body, gasping repeatedly. His eyes filled with horror despite that he had known it would happen, like he hadn’t quite believed it anyway. 

Maybe it were all these memories that were crashing back so vividly in that instant that, when San came around for their weekly shared breakfast, bringing by all sorts of sweet baked goods and Hongjoong’s favorite coffee, Hongjoong felt a strong need to talk about the events of the past. He felt for the first time that he owed San an explanation of it all, even if he never had pushed Hongjoong to spill his past, to explain his behavior, Hongjoong knew that San wanted to know, it was the utmost normal reaction, _curiosity_. 

When San entered the flat, he found Hongjoong sitting on the floor of his living room, one of Yunho’s stupid Labrador figurines in his hand, toying with the snout, deep in thought. How should he open the conversation for it? How would it affect their friendship? How would he feel afterwards? 

“Um, Hongjoong?” San questioned, placing the breakfast on the kitchen counter, and came over to him, kneeling down next to him and placing his hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Hongjoong replied the question, even added a reassuring head nod. San pursed his lips, but didn’t say anything else. 

Instead he walked back into the kitchen, moving around swiftly, humming to himself quietly at some point. Hongjoong didn’t move or budge, not even when there were whirring noises and San cursed as he dropped something, he was too anxious about the conversation ahead of him. He knew he could push it off again and wait some time, pretend that everything was fine, and that he wasn’t constantly on the brink of an emotional breakdown these days… But San knew him, he knew how to read Hongjoong, he knew when there was something off, _and_ he knew that Hongjoong had been harboring various secrets all these years. 

At some point, the noises coming from the kitchen progressively stopped and then San came walking into the living room, holding a tray with the breakfast he had prepared. He disposed it on the table next to the sofa and poked Hongjoong’s cheek, trying to get his attention. Hongjoong obliged, setting the toy Labrador aside, and shifted into a more comfortable sitting position. He grabbed one of the coffee mugs and allowed San to take care of him.

They ate the breakfast in silence at first, but then San cleared his throat, glancing at Hongjoong every couple of seconds, and Hongjoong swallowed, knowing well what was about to come.

“You're being weird these days. Absent…” San pointed out, setting down his cup of coffee, picking apart the croissant on his plate, nervous at how Hongjoong would react. And at any other time, any other past moment, Hongjoong would have told him off, but things weren’t like that anymore. “Did something happen?” San inquired, further, after Hongjoong kept silent. 

“I guess it’s about time I tell you,” Hongjoong began, shifting into the cushions of his couch, picking at a loose string of his sweatshirt. 

“What do you mean?” San asked, then glanced around Hongjoong’s apartment, which was an assembly of fancy and modern furnitures, except for those few, strange personal objects that disrupted the perfect image of a clean, almost thirty year old man. The objects that pointed at a bigger story hidden in Hongjoong’s memories. 

“Remember when we met back in the picturesque neighborhood? When I was so utterly lost and sad, and you motivated me to pursue music again?” Hongjoong started, and San nodded. “Part of what I told you back then was true: I did drop out of university because it had become too much too handle; and it was true as well that I was crumbling underneath my parents’ pressure of being something that I really didn’t want to be. It was true that I held a broken heart.” He let out a heavy sigh, his lungs hurting in the process. “But not for the reason people usually get their hearts broken. I did it to myself, and I held someone else’s broken heart too. And…” He hesitated, his throat dry and constricted, the familiar waves crashing at his mind already. “And I lost my best friend that summer.” 

“What?” San’s face morphed into one of incomprehensible horror. He put his cup and plate down onto the table, all of his attention directed at Hongjoong. “What do you mean?”

“I guess I should start with telling you that after you moved away, Yunho and I became best friends. No, not best friends, it was something deeper. I don’t know.” He shrugged, unable to find the right words to explain Yunho’s and his bond. “You remember him, right? Jeong Yunho?” 

“The super smart kid who talked about Galileo Galilei and the stars and all that shit.” 

“Yes.” Hongjoong laughed bitterly. “Yes, that _was_ him.” He swallowed, the words threatening to not come out, his throat tightening further. “We became best friends and even moved together to a city far away from my parents, his parents, and went to university together, shared a flat, all that stuff. It was a great time,” he told his friend, getting lost in his memories, reminiscing. “We would often hit up the gay district, with the both of us not being straight, and there we met Mingi, they were Jongho’s roommate back then.” 

“Jongho? _My_ Jongho?” San echoed, his voice a bare whisper. 

“I don’t know how much he told you about his life in the gray city… He worked with Mingi at _La Naranja_. We went to that bar quite a lot, it was safe, you know? It wasn’t that eventful, though, until we met them: Seonghwa, Wooyoung, and Yerim.” He inhaled sharply. “ _Seonghwa_. It was his first night there and—and _god_ , I still remember him so vividly: he was so beautiful and I was so in love with a simple look at him and—” He choked on his emotions.

“Hongjoong, _breathe_.” San reached out to squeeze Hongjoong’s shoulder. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” 

“I want to,” Hongjoong told San, told himself. “I need to.” 

“Okay, all right. Take your time.”

“Seonghwa and I fell in love. So did Yunho and Mingi. Yunho helped Mingi come to terms with their gender identity back then. It’s a long story. And there was so much love there, in between them.” He exhaled, rubbing his hands on his thighs in an attempt to dry the sweat forming on his palms. “It was… It was an amazing summer, this group bonded so quickly and without many troubles or… I don’t know how to explain it, but it was almost as we were all supposed to meet then. It was so easy how we all fitted together.” The memories came crashing back, images upon images clashing in his brain, blurry and chaotic. “You would have belonged too,” he added and San smiled tightly, not letting his emotions get ahold of himself. “But when summer came to an end so did all the peace. Yunho he—” Hongjoong shook his head, the words of what had happened wouldn’t go past his lips. “He died,” he managed.

His story and words echoed through the apartment loudly, bouncing off the walls and settling into both of their minds. To San it was a harsh thing to discover, for Hongjoong it was a painful memory to revisit. 

“ _What_?” San choked out, tears forming in his eyes. “You’re telling me that—that Yunho? Jeong Yunho, from elementary school, is _dead_?” 

Hongjoong nodded. 

“After that, it all broke apart,” Hongjoong continued in between sobs. “I hurt Seonghwa badly. I feel so _fucking_ guilty still, you can’t even imagine. When I say I have insomnia and can’t sleep, it’s because of the words I told him and his face before leaving. It’s Yunho’s lifeless body on the ground. It’s Mingi wearing their broken heart on their sleeves. It all _haunts_ me.” Hongjoong let out a distressed sound, running a hand through his hair; his heart was beating fast, almost as if it wanted to jump out. But strangely, a tiny part of him felt relieved. “Why do you think I avoided Jongho so much? I couldn’t face him, I just couldn’t. But I—I saw Seonghwa in November and before him, Mingi,” he confessed. 

“Wait, they’re _here_? Here in this city?” 

Hongjoong nodded, hands still in his hair, head bowed down, his eyes closed, trying to control his breathing. San just sat there, staring at the terrace outside, where thick raindrops were falling now; his mind was spinning. 

“ _Fuck_ ,” he mumbled out, voice shaky. “Fuck, Hongjoong. All this time you carried all of this around, alone.” San reached out his hand again, hesitantly, and rubbed Hongjoong’s back soothingly, unsure what else he could do. There wasn’t really anything, he believed, except a comforting presence.

* * *

**January 30, 2025, 1 month, 4 days, 12 hours, 6 minutes:**

_I think I want to try again_

Being in a foreign city for a limited amount of time was a lot nicer than Hongjoong had thought at first. He thought he’d have to stay inside the hotel the whole time because in between the concert and leaving for the next city for another concert, wouldn’t give him much time to explore or wander around, but he had thought wrong. There was _plenty_ time, and he welcomed that. 

He needed a distraction, something to do so his mind didn’t wander back to Seonghwa and their meeting during Christmas; and how his heart seemed to yearn for his ex lover’s presence more than ever now. He wasn’t sure how it was making him feel. He had walked right back into the closet after that summer, hiding his sexuality from the world — except from San, who knew him inside out now — and living in loneliness and misery all these years. He had learned how to shield and guard his heart, to put up walls so no one would even _think_ about the possibility of Hongjoong having a heart that could beat for another person. And yet, Seonghwa had broken his way back in, shattering that wall as if it was nothing — not even noticing that he had done that.

Hongjoong didn’t like it. He hadn’t protected himself all these years just to be back at square one, just to stand on that square they all had stood on back then, that was so dangerous and life threatening. There were two options, be safe but not truly free, or be out and in constant danger. Hongjoong had thought the latter was better — the latter was _him_ —but he had been wrong, he had learned to value his life (that his life _had_ value), he wasn’t going to throw away this safety. He couldn’t risk it. He felt so terrified these days about his sexuality, he never had felt this way about it before, not even when his parents had shouted at him after he had come out to them; it was at its worst right now, his fear. 

Hongjoong shook his head, dissipating his thoughts and fears, and walked into a small café fairly close to his hotel; it was the day after his concert. He had slept the whole morning, recharging his energy, and when his manager had woken up him he had brought pleasant news: they weren’t going to part until the next morning, 8am sharp, so Hongjoong had the whole day off to sightsee the city. He had gotten dressed and then had left the hotel disguised. Although he didn’t quite believe someone would recognize him — he didn’t like the idea of getting famous to the point that he’d get harassed on the streets, it terrified him, even more so while being gay. But his manager had insisted that he should wear a cap and some mask or scarf to cover his face, so Hongjoong did. It was cold, anyway. 

He didn’t push the scarf away from his mouth when he ordered his Americano, the barista looked a bit annoyed at his mumbled and muffled order, but didn’t say anything, just shot Hongjoong a blindingly fake smile and turned around to get started on the caffeine rich drink. Hongjoong decided to move to a free table nearby where a bunch of magazines were lying around; it couldn’t hurt to read a bit while he waited, get acquainted with the newest gossips see what other artists were making it in the ranks… He didn’t even bother with the first couple of magazines (about gardening, interior decorations, and architecture). He stopped when he found one about celebrities and the latest gossip and opened it, flicking through the first couple of pages that held no interesting information. 

He got so immersed in the magazine that he nearly missed the barista announcing his drink was ready. Hongjoong startled when he heard the barista’s voice, and got up from his seat, retrieving the drink and paying for it, giving the barista a generous tip, then he walked back to the table and continued his read. Initially, he had planned to walk around a bit, but he could do that once he had finished his Americano, he had plenty of time.

For once he had. 

He turned around the page, finishing a read about how the underground music scene was gaining popularity, and his eyes fell on an article about young and rich bachelors on their way to success. It was a list of the ten most influential bachelors in the area, he was about to pass the page as he had no interest in the article when his eyes fell onto a grainy, black and white picture of a man in his late twenties. He wore a white suit, his arms crossed over his chest, and a confident and cheerful smile decorating his face. His eyes were youthful and even if it was only a picture, Hongjoong could feel the glee in them, that contagious mirth that he once had had the pleasure of experiencing in person — hearing that laughter accompanying the mirth. Underneath the picture Hongjoong read the name _Jeong_ _Wooyoung_ , and left of it was a description about him and his achievements. 

It seemed that he had finished university successfully, then had moved on to take over his father’s company just to put it on the market as he had had no interest in keeping it since it was shady. Wooyoung had used the money for charities and was now running for city council. All while being _openly_ _gay_. Hongjoong was surprised and he felt a little bit jealous. Wooyoung had always seemed carefree and unconcerned, and back then he had always been on the same playful and youthful level as Jongho. The two of them causing havoc wherever their group went.

Hongjoong pulled his lips into a thin line and he closed the magazine, there was no point anyway, Wooyoung was busy with his work and political movement; he probably did not remember them, it had been nearly six years after all. And even if he did, it wasn’t as if there was a way for Hongjoong to contact him, neither was he sure if Wooyoung would even want them back in his life — not that Hongjoong could blame him, it had turned out to be an extremely painful time. For all of them. 

He disposed his coffee cup on the counter, nodded his head at the barista as a goodbye, and walked out of the café and into the foreign city.

To be back and have nothing ahead of him was overwhelming. 

He had been so focused on working and making a name for himself; then, after getting signed to the company, he had spent time on building an image and training; lastly, the preparations for the tour had come. But it was over now, the tour was done, and Hongjoong was back in his penthouse, a free month in front of him, and it felt wrong. It felt as if he was standing in front of a void. 

His penthouse was quiet, and quietude gave space and time for him to think. And thinking was the last thing Hongjoong wanted to do, he needed a distraction, desperately. If not, his thoughts would go spiraling and that was never good. At least he had some appointments with his therapist this month and he planned on using them to their fullest, tell his therapist about his trauma and maybe even touch the subject of Seonghwa. Open up a bit, he felt guilty about not doing so in the two years he had been visiting the therapist. Lying whenever he went to her office, saying that he was fine, okay, nervous due to his career, anxious about failing… He had mentioned his nightmares, and his drinking (so he could sleep properly), but he never had answered her questions about where those nightmares came from and why he needed to sedate his mind.

He was trying to stop doing so, he knew alcohol wasn’t going to fix shit and sooner or later he’d have to face his pain, and now felt like a good time. His past was pushing its way back into his life anyway. 

Around a week after being back from the tour, he had gotten a message and had ignored it for two days, then he’d gotten another message from the same sender and he had forced himself to reply, to allow that person to come over. 

It was a warmer night, despite that it was mid February, spring seemed to come early that year, and Hongjoong was dressed in some loose sweatpants and a thin cotton t-shirt.

When the doorbell rang, he got up from his couch, shivering as he thought about what he was doing and the possible endings to this meeting, but he had wanted it to happen so he couldn’t complain, really. He walked over to the door, but before opening he took in a deep breath, counted to three, and then he yanked the door open, the sender of the messages stood there. Seonghwa looked so beautiful in the hallway light. He, much like Hongjoong, was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, but Seonghwa wore a thin leather jacket on top. His hair was dark brown and it looked so soft, his fringe was covering his forehead and falling over his eyebrows, almost over his eyes too. 

Much like the first time they had met, Hongjoong was overwhelmed with his beauty and he couldn’t stop staring at him, at all his single features. But Seonghwa wasn’t laughing unlike the first time Hongjoong had seen him, his expression was guarded and there was fear in his eyes.

Hongjoong blinked at him, then, slowly, he moved aside to let Seonghwa inside.

“Hello,” he breathed out once his ex lover was inside the penthouse, and closed the door softly, the click seemed a tenfold louder in the tense silence between them. 

“Hi,” Seonghwa replied, giving out a shy smile. 

They just stood there, staring at one another, and let the seconds pass by, getting familiar with the situation of being in front of each other again after all these year. It wasn’t an unplanned, surprise meeting, they were there because they _actually_ wanted to meet again. It meant more than any of the two could express in words, so they just let the old familiarity slowly return. Seonghwa looked so much like he had back then and yet, at the same time, he seemed like a completely different person, more grown up and more confident than he had been almost six years ago. 

“Um, so…” Hongjoong walked into his kitchen, Seonghwa followed him close. He wrung his hands together nervously, thinking of what he could say. “Do you want a drink?” he offered as his eyes fell on his liquor cabinet, its glass door was open as he had fixed himself one of Mingi’s strange cocktails earlier, to soothe the nerves. 

“Yes, please,” Seonghwa replied quickly, coughing embarrassedly at the eagerness of his words. “I mean, that’d be great. Yeah.” 

Hongjoong nodded, and grabbed two bottles to prepare the cocktail he remembered Seonghwa enjoying back then, one that Jongho used to make in excellence, which he had invented himself and sold on the low as it hadn’t been on the menu list. 

The silence was growing uncomfortable now, when Hongjoong was done with the drink and poured them each a glass, he walked over to the stereo and turned it on, putting it at a low volume so that it’d serve as background music. It was a mixtape San had made him some time ago. He cleared the sofa from the couple of items that were scattered about — a blanket, a remote control, a book, one of Yunho’s plushies — and sat down, motioning at Seonghwa to follow suit. 

“Make yourself comfortable,” he told him, and Seonghwa nodded, sitting next to him but not too close, a bit stiffly. 

In silence they enjoyed their drinks and listened to the music that played. Hongjoong ranked his brain for words he wanted to say, he _needed_ to say, but his mind was a desert, miles and miles of nothingness. He swallowed, lowering his drink to let it softly stand on his knee, never letting go, and tapped his finger lightly against his knee. 

“I’m sorry,” he settled for saying, the words quiet, a whisper barely, but he knew Seonghwa had heard him as the other’s head shot up and turned towards Hongjoong. “I’m sorry about what I did back then,” he repeated, clearer and louder, meaning it. Seonghwa nodded, quiet, taking another sip. 

“It’s okay…” he said and, when Hongjoong looked at him, Seonghwa was staring at the blank TV, a frown between his brows. He looked just as troubled as Hongjoong felt. “I mean, it isn’t— _wasn’t_ okay, but I guess over the years, I’ve made my peace with it. It hurt a lot in the beginning, but over time the pain and anger have faded away.” 

“Yeah.” Hongjoong just stared at his hands, one holding the glass the other lying flat on his thigh. He let out a sigh. He had to say something. “Over time, the scars began to heal, you know? Sometimes it’s not even there, the pain… But it still plagued me at night and now I think I know why. I’ve never faced it,” he explained, facing Seonghwa who was looking at him with big and forgiving eyes. Forgiveness that Hongjoong hadn’t been ready to give himself, yet, but Seonghwa was, so he _tried_ to forgive himself a bit in that moment. “I never apologized to you. And it’s about time.” 

“I forgive you, Hongjoong. I have for a while. It’s okay.” He moved his hand to cover the one that Hongjoong had lying flat on his knee, squeezing it lightly. 

“But there’s so much we should still talk about…” he countered, biting his lower lip anxiously. 

There was a fire burning in the pit of his stomach now, one he hadn’t felt in all these years, and it almost felt foreign to him. It didn’t surprise him to feel it, but it was the familiarity of it that did shock him, his heart beating so fast and violently in his chest that he feared it’d jump out of his chest. His heart was yearning for Seonghwa and in that moment he couldn’t fight it — didn’t _want_ to fight it. 

Hongjoong finished his drink, leaning forward to leave it on the small table standing in between the couch and the TV, softly removing his other hand from underneath Seonghwa’s. He cleared his throat, thinking of how to keep the conversation flowing because in the back of his head there was an idea starting to form vaguely, with every second that he felt Seonghwa’s warm presence so close it became clearer and clearer — pictures flashing in his mind of something so familiar yet almost so forgotten, memories that were of something he hadn’t really allowed himself since that summer — and it could become dangerous. Hongjoong was already pleasantly buzzed from the drinks he’d had before Seonghwa’s arrival, but this last drink was slowly kicking in, although not enough to really call himself drunk. 

Seonghwa finished his own drink, leaving it on the table next to Hongjoong’s, and when he leaned back it seemed he was closer to the older. 

“We, uh, should talk about this and…” Hongjoong tried to ignore that growing desire to lean forward and kiss Seonghwa again. Kiss him and feel what he had felt all those years ago, allow himself that blooming in his chest that he had missed so much. 

“And?” Seonghwa echoed, his hand coming up again to cover Hongjoong’s, his eyes were hooded now and he was leaning forward, almost as if he needed to be close to Hongjoong, in his personal space as much as possible. 

Hongjoong realized Seonghwa probably had missed him just as much, yearning for the same _damn_ thing all these years. His hand twitched underneath Seonghwa’s and he slowly turned it around so he could ever so lightly and slowly interlace their fingers. It wasn’t graceful or sure, he was hesitant, his hands shaking and his heart beating so fast it made him dizzy; Seonghwa seemed to be a bit more confident, but Hongjoong noticed that his hand was shaking too. It reminded him of the first time they had slept together in that tent up in the mountains, with the stars stretching out like a blanket above them, except that it was reversed, Hongjoong was the scared one and Seonghwa the confident one. 

“And we shouldn’t—” He didn’t know what he had wanted to say, his thoughts were dissolving in his mind until all he could focus on was the steady presence of Seonghwa’s hand on his, the closeness of the other, the perfume Seonghwa was wearing. “We should probably…” 

“Probably what?” 

There was a rushing in Hongjoong’s ears that was louder than anything else in the room, and he looked at Seonghwa, _really_ looked at him. His inquisitive and soft eyes staring at him with anticipation and want, but there was hesitance in them, too, and much to Hongjoong’s emotional distress there was love, so _much_ love that shouldn’t even be there after what he had done. Seonghwa’s lips were parted and dry, chapped, and his cheeks were flushed. His skin seemed to glister, a drop of sweat slowly sliding down the side of his face, and Hongjoong realized Seonghwa was just as nervous and nerve-wracked as him, but unlike Hongjoong, Seonghwa was certain of what he wanted — Seonghwa knew he wanted them to happen again. Hongjoong wasn’t sure. He didn’t know if this should happen, if it would do more harm than good, ultimately. He didn’t want it to ruin the bit of hope he had started to built up again. 

It was in their hands now — wherever this was going depended on them. And Hongjoong decided he wanted it to go somewhere, anywhere, and wherever that would end up being he wanted to find that love again he once had felt so strongly (still was feeling far behind the walls he had put up). 

“I want us again,” he finally replied, his voice trembling. “I do,” he added, and leaned in towards Seonghwa to kiss him. 

It was time to heal.

“I’ve missed you,” Seonghwa murmured as they parted from the kiss, his breathing hitched, and he leaned in again to leave a trail of butterfly light kisses up Hongjoong’s neck and jaw. 

“I’ve missed you too,” Hongjoong told him, scared about being honest and scared about lowering his guard and walls to let Seonghwa back in. 

But it felt so right, and he had missed this sort of _familiarity_ with another person.

**February 13, 2025, 3 hours, 18 minutes:**

_Did you hear our hearts beat as one last night?_

* * *

It was a Sunday morning, when people either were at church or slept in, and Mingi found themself walking down the street near where Hongjoong and Jongho lived at, a thick winter coat protecting them from the winter’s coldness, in which they were hiding their hands — they had forgotten to bring gloves. They were a human on a mission, now that most obstacles were out of the way, and they had made up their mind definitely, they wanted to go find Jongho. It seemed that Seonghwa did not mind anymore letting the past catch up on them, and Mingi didn’t want to keep their old best friend out of their new life. They had met at their worst, so they deserved to be together at their best, see how much they had changed and improved over the years. At least it was Mingi’s best, they weren’t sure about Jongho. They had a feeling, though, he was at his best too. 

They deserved to see one another in the versions they had always dreamed of becoming all those years ago: when they’d lain on the couch in their tiny apartment during summer time, with the windows wide open to have some air flowing inside and the sounds of cars passing by carrying up, cicadas singing them a lullaby. They had dreamed of who they wanted to become one day, and now that they had — or on a sure path to — they deserved to experience that together too.

When Mingi got to the big and imposing building, they shuffled around awkwardly in front of the entrance porch. Once Mingi had known Jongho lived in the green city, they had looked his name up in the yellow pages, but after that Mingi had staggered in their next step. They wanted to see him again, they had missed him, but there had been a void of five years. Mingi wasn’t the same and neither would be Jongho, and as much as they wanted to meet him again it terrified them. They were close to strangers, just like Hongjoong had become a stranger, too, and Seonghwa.

No matter how close Mingi and Jongho once had been, there were five years of catching up that stopped them from ringing the doorbell immediately.

Mingi pulled out their phone to text Seonghwa and have him help them take this crucial decision, but they suspected Seonghwa might still be asleep. They weren’t going to get an answer any time soon, and they weren’t going to call Seonghwa. Mingi knew better than anyone how precious sleep was in the teaching career. Seonghwa had to get up at around 5am every morning, Sundays were his off days — his resting days. Mingi didn’t want to disturb that. So they sat in silence by the entrance of the apartment block, watching the few car pass by, the café nearby was empty still, two employees standing behind the counter, talking. It was peaceful. 

Mingi jumped up in surprise when the door behind them opened, hitting their lower back. The person exiting immediately apologized, and when Mingi turned around to see who it was that had injured them, they were surprised to see a young man around their age. He had short silver hair and was wearing a blue beanie pulled over his head. His eyes were a dark brown; they looked somewhat sad and melancholic. 

“I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Mingi said, getting up from their spot and taking a step back so the man could exit. “It’s gonna leave a mark, but it’s not the end of the world.” 

“I’m really sorry. I should’ve checked,” the man apologized again. They were standing on the pavement now and Mingi noticed that the man was extremely cute.

“Nah, I shouldn’t have chosen this place to sit down and ponder. It’s my fault,” Mingi said. 

The young man laughed. It was a clear and melodic sound, like a church’s bell on a quiet and breezy Sunday morning. A tinkling sound that reverberated in Mingi’s chest, magnified by the man’s delightful essence and the way his eyes turned into crescents — the sun seemed so much closer to Mingi in that moment. 

(Mingi felt a familiar guilt clawing its way up their throat, and they looked away.) 

“What were you doing there, anyway?” 

“Uhm.” Mingi scratched the back of their neck, side glancing the building. That was such a hard question to answer. They could lie, of course, but the stranger looked so earnest and trustworthy. “I was here to look for an old friend of mine, but I’m a bit scared. So I’m here, stalling. ” 

“Well, I hope you find the courage to meet them again. I’m a bit in a hurry, but it was lovely meeting you. I’m San, by the way.” The stranger — San — reached out his hand and Mingi shook it briefly. 

The name sounded scarily familiar.

“Mingi. And likewise. I guess I’ll see you around?” they inquired, but San held a perplexed expression on his face, frowning as he avoided Mingi’s eyes. He recovered quickly enough, though, and nodded his head with a friendly smile, then he speed walked to the intersection.

He shot Mingi one last wave of his hand. 

Mingi stood outside of the apartment block for a couple of minutes more before they decided to give up. They could always come back. Besides, the run in with San had left them flustered and confused. 

As Mingi walked home they thought of Yunho, it had become a lot easier to deal with it. It wasn’t an open wound anymore, but the pain never truly ceased; they still had nightmares about that day. They had gone to therapy for years, sometimes still went when it became too painful to deal with and the nightmares robbed them of their sleep, leaving them gasping for air in the middle of the night, a scream stuck in their throat. They doubted they’d ever completely heal from it, not just because it had been a horrible thing to go through, but because it’d feel _wrong_ if it didn’t hurt them anymore. Some wounds were forever, it just became easier to live with them.

It wasn’t as if Mingi hadn’t been in relationships since Yunho, they had, two in total. Both of them in the previous two years — before that, it had been too hard to completely allow themself to fall for someone new without having the guilt swallow them, and their mental condition worsening. The first of those two relationships had lasted a month, the second one half a year. They both had left them emotionally drained, and wondering if they were broken now, unable to fall again like they had that summer almost six years ago. 

Mingi had met Yunho two years prior to the start of their romantic relationship, and had bonded over deep and philosophical conversations happening well past 3am. They had always left Mingi wondering what it’d be like to know Yunho under different circumstances. Then that fateful day had arrived, when Seonghwa, Yerim, and Wooyoung had come into the picture and somehow all of them had grown closer; it hadn’t been a surprise to Mingi that they had fallen for Yunho so quick. Those feelings, Mingi had been harboring them for a while; and Yunho had been someone easy to fall for, if they were to meet him now, Mingi would fall for him again, undoubtedly. But that wasn’t possible, and Mingi was left only with all the memories, and a wound that would never quite heal. 

They found solace now in remembering everything they had learnt from their ex-boyfriend — it felt so wrong to refer to him as an _ex_ , by choice they would still be dating — about loving and accepting themself; they no longer felt shameful of their sexuality or gender identity, nor about the things Mingi had done back then to be able to survive and pay rent and food _and_ take care of Jongho simultaneously. Mingi had learnt so much in those couple of months they had dated, and even now Mingi still learnt and explored themself with ideologies and thoughts Yunho had shared with them during that summer, that Mingi had been too young then to wholly comprehend and process.

* * *

Hongjoong was holed up in his favorite blanket, one that had once materialized in the flat Yunho and him used to share — he still didn’t know where it had come from, but it was his comfort blanket — and stared blankly at the black screen of the TV, hoping that he’d magically find an answer there. 

San was supposed to come over soon with beer so they could get drunk and drown in their feelings. Hongjoong wasn’t the only one with love related troubles anymore, San had met _someone_. He hadn’t talked about them much since Hongjoong had been overseas, and when he had come back there had been the whole meeting Seonghwa thing, but now they finally had time to sit down and talk about their feelings and problems. Hongjoong really needed it, and it seemed that San did too. His friend had been _extremely_ private about this person he had met, and Hongjoong couldn’t help but feel _extremely_ suspicious. Usually, San wouldn’t shy away of immediately launching into a detailed explanation of the person he was interested in (or hooking up with). This time he simply mentioned that he had met someone recently, who he found interesting and might want to get to know better, nothing more. Hongjoong felt even more anxious because of that. 

And Hongjoong himself still needed to tell San about the encounter two days ago. He hadn’t really thought straight then, clouded by his desire to be intimate with another person again, by his heart that had missed Seonghwa so much, by a slightly inebriated mind. He shouldn’t have slept with Seonghwa just like that after such a long time apart, specially not if he considered the fact that they had barely talked about what had happened that summer. To Hongjoong it was still a huge rock, something that he was working on overcoming, and even if Seonghwa forgave him it didn’t make it right. 

Hongjoong still was scared; he used to be so free and confident in his sexuality, but ever since then he had regressed. He had walked back into the closet to protect himself and he had grown hateful of himself, that internalized homophobia eating him away. But meeting Seonghwa again, plus their hook up, it had reminded Hongjoong of that freedom he once had possessed. It had reminded him of what he used to fight for, what he used to believe in; it had reminded him of loving and being loved in a way so pure and meaningful. Something he had forgotten over time, had grown scared of, but Seonghwa had reminded him of how good and powerful love was. 

He wanted to have back what he had lost that summer. The bravery, the love, the friendships. _Seonghwa_. If there was a chance to have it back, he wanted it. 

(He yearned it.) 

The doorbell rang and Hongjoong choked on his spit, startled by the noise even though he was expecting visit. San usually let himself in as he owned a key.

Hongjoong frowned, getting up from the couch. He walked over to the door, dragging his blanket with him, and reached out to turn the knob to let his friend inside, but he stopped. Something felt off. His hand was suspended in the air, above the door handle, the palm and his fingertips prickling as if a thousand tiny needles were being pushed inside his skin. His heart was beating fast, and for some unknown reason he had the feeling someone was holding his hand back from opening the door; someone was right there with him, keeping him from opening the door, and Hongjoong wondered why. 

He moved to the small screen next to the door where he could see who it was that rang his door — he never quite used it as he was a rather private person and didn’t have many friends, just San, pretty much — he pressed the button to turn on the device, and when the screen flickered alive, he was shown a black and white, low quality picture of a young man standing outside the apartment block downstairs. The man was wearing a bomber jacket, a hoodie underneath, a beanie pulled over his head, his ears sticking out in a funny way. 

Hongjoong swallowed and just stared at Seonghwa, the doorbell rang insistently, but Hongjoong couldn’t open the door, he was paralyzed. The memories of their encounter two days ago came running back to him, his cheeks grew warm and his heartbeat faster. Seonghwa outside let out a frustrated sigh that sounded distorted through the speaker. 

“Come on, Hongjoong,” Seonghwa whispered, his voice pleading, raspy.Hongjoong could only stare at him, he wasn’t capable in that moment to open the door and let his past lover in. Seonghwa rang the bell again, but gave up after five-seconds of letting it ring. He slammed his hand against the wall next to where the camera was installed. 

“Damn it,” he muttered, angrily and a bit desperate. He sighed, and finally walked away. 

Hongjoong let out the breath he had been holding, his hand was still suspended in the air so he slowly let it fall back down. He was shaking slightly, despite the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and his chest hurt. 

Then the door opened, nearly slamming Hongjoong in his face, and San stood there, in his pajama — or what looked to be a pajama — holding a six pack of beer in one hand, in the other he held the key to Hongjoong’s penthouse flat. San seemed surprised to see Hongjoong standing there as he took a step back, frowning. 

“You okay?” he asked, concerned. 

Hongjoong nodded in reply, snapping out of it, and ushered his friend inside. He turned off the screen next to the door, no one standing downstairs anymore and staring at the nothingness made Hongjoong feel all kinds of wrong. He could’ve let Seonghwa in, could’ve sat down with him to have a chat about their night two days ago, about their relationship six years ago, about their fight during Yunho’s funeral… But he didn’t. He hadn’t found the courage within himself to open the door, so he had deal with that now. With this decision and all the others that had led him there. 

He cleared his throat, shaking himself out of his thoughts, and sat on a kitchen stool, he motioned at San to come close. His friend seemed a bit confused as to why they weren’t sitting on the couch, but he didn’t question it, not yet at least. San left the six pack on the counter in front of Hongjoong, moving to the other side of the kitchen to fetch a bottle opener and a stool. 

Two beers and a lot of unnecessary and light banter later, they were both pleasantly buzzed, San’s mixtape playing in the background now. They both knew the other had something to talk about — needed to talk about desperately — but they were both hesitant about it, meaning it was incredibly important to them and they weren’t sure how to bring it up, didn’t know how to let go of their walls and be vulnerable. Even if they were best friends and had been for years, it was still hard to open up and lay all feelings out. They were both emotionally bruised, hurt by people and themselves. But Hongjoong decided to shed himself of his cowardice and take the first step.

“Seonghwa was here two days ago,” he said as he popped open his third bottle.

San choked on his sip, coughing and slamming his hand against his chest, and looked at Hongjoong with a rather dramatic expression. “He _what_?”

“He came over and we talked some. And then, er…” he trailed off, scratching the back of his neck and avoiding San’s eyes.

“You slept together?” San asked even if he already knew the answer. He was gaping, but as he took in Hongjoong’s shaking hands, his wide eyes, he tried to sober up and be there for his best friend. “How was it?” 

Hongjoong bit his lip, cheeks growing hot. “Good. Better than that,” he answered, finally looking into San’s eyes. “I don’t know, god, I missed him and I missed, uh, _intimacy_. Like that, with him.” 

“Do you… Do you want to try again with him?” 

Hongjoong looked at the rim of the bottle, passing his thumb over it, and thought about it. He did want to try again, of course, but there was all this story in between. Six years, almost, in which they had grown and matured, and become people that weren’t the same as the first time they had met. This was their second time around, their second meeting — a second chance, it seemed. And they weren’t the same, yet Hongjoong was still scared and hesitant to take this leap of faith. He wasn’t even sure his agency would support him if he were to out himself, if he were to date a man…

“Hongjoong?” San pushed, tilting his head to the side.

“I want to,” he replied finally, the _but_ hanging heavy in the air though. 

“But?”

“But I’m a coward. I was back then and I am now. He risked a lot for me and I—I ran away. And now, after all this time, I can’t surely say that I’d risk it all for him. And I hate myself for that.”

“But it’s in your hands. It’s _your_ choice. To risk it all.”

“I know, but—”

San let out a sigh, irritated. It was more like a huff, and when Hongjoong looked at him, San wore a frown and his lips were pressed together tightly. “What exactly are you scared of?”

“I,” he started but didn’t know what to follow that with, there was a lot he was scared of, “am scared that I will promise him something I can’t hold… I mean, _fuck_ , San. The agency… I don’t even know if they’d allow me to come out, even less date a man. I just—There’s so much for me to lose…”

“I know.” San nodded, his features softening. “I know, but by the end of your life; wouldn’t you regret it?” he asked, and Hongjoong didn’t know. Would he regret it more sacrificing his career or his love? “And about the agency… They know I’m gay and they’re okay with it. Maybe I’m not allowed to walk around preaching it, but I am _openly gay_. There are around one hundred artists under the label, you’re not the only gay one. Not even the only gay musician they have. So don’t give up on Seonghwa.”

Hongjoong thought about it. He knew San was openly gay, but he was a model: he didn’t stand in front of a crowd to sing, there was a difference. But Hongjoong knew that his friend was right as well, he could talk with his manager, find an arrangement. He wasn’t prohibited from dating. He swallowed as he let this thought — giving Seonghwa and himself another chance at love — run through his head. It scared him so much.

Love was terrifying to him.

He took a deep breathe, trying to soothe his nerves, trying so hard not to break down into sobs, but he was already tipsy and the past months had been a rollercoaster that he had tried not to let him affect. And San’s words, plus this progression of events, just tore at whatever he had left, and the dam broke. Hongjoong choked out a sob, his hands shaking intensely now, and San didn’t waste any time in hugging him tightly.

San rubbed circles into his back with one hand, with the other he caressed his hair softly. “It’ll be all right. It’s all right,” he whispered.

Hongjoong believed his friend.

* * *

**March 4, 2025, 18 days, 10 hours, 18 minutes:**

_And so, I begin to fall again for you again_

Seonghwa was lying on his bed, sprawled out and looking up at the white ceiling: there was a cobweb in the corner, where a small spider housed. At first Seonghwa had been very against having a pet spider in his room, but after the first three times that he had mustered up the courage to vacuum his flat and get rid of the spiders, he had regretted it each time as there had been an increase of annoying, fat, and ugly flies buzzing around which ended up dying and falling onto his bedroom floor after a couple of days. So he had decided he’d have the spider living in the corner, up on the ceiling of his bedroom (it never seemed to move, at least not when Seonghwa was around, and he hoped that it didn’t go on nightly trips and crawl around in his bed while he was asleep).

He was lying in his bed and thinking about what he had avoided to think about for the past two weeks, but he was too tired now to put all his energy into _not_ thinking about it. He was drained, unfocused, tired. And above all he couldn’t bare to cry himself to sleep for another night. So he let his mind wander to the night in Hongjoong’s penthouse, where Seonghwa had laid the other down on his bed, in between his expensive sheets, and had trailed kisses down his torso, had savored every corner of Hongjoong’s mouth, trying to see if it tasted the same as it had almost six years ago.

He thought about what he was supposed to do now. There was no way he was letting Hongjoong go, _again_. There was no way he was letting Hongjoong slip through his hands like sand. The first time he had done it, he had ended up almost destroying himself. He couldn’t do it again.

And Seonghwa didn’t believe in coincidences. He hadn’t met Hongjoong for the _second_ time five months ago only to repeat his initial mistake again. It was a second chance thrown at him, to fix their past, to try again…

He heaved himself off of his bed and leaned to his right to open the first drawer of his night table. Inside was a small notebook covered in black leather. It had been a gift of his dad, when Seonghwa had been nineteen or twenty, with the prospect of using it to write down information of possible future clients, to take notes in university… But Seonghwa hadn’t used it for that, he had forgotten about it shortly after his dad had given it to him. Until he had met Hongjoong for the first time, and suddenly he had had that urge to hold his thoughts in it. Words spilling out freely.

He opened the notebook on the first page and there it was, the first thing he ever wrote into the notebook, in messy handwriting (he had been sort of drunk and sleepy). It read _May 18, 2019, 31 minutes: I only just met you, but I already know now that I won’t forget you_ and after all these years it had been true. Seonghwa had not once forgotten about Hongjoong. He flipped through the following twenty pages, all with similar entries until he stopped at the last one.

It was then that he got an idea, he reached out his hand and grabbed the pen he had always by his nightstand, he clicked it once, and moved it onto the slightly yellowish page and started scribbling down the first thoughts that came to his mind.

He wasn’t going to let Hongjoong go again, at least not without trying to fight for their love first, not without trying to work through their story and differences first. He wasn’t going to let Hongjoong go like he had that day up on the hill when Yunho had gotten buried.

He couldn’t bear the thought of losing Hongjoong again, to turn his back on him and walk away.

One hour later, he stood in front of the big apartment block, twenty minutes away from his own home, except the streets were clean here, the lines on the road were freshly painted on and bright. The sidewalks were made out of white tiles and there were small patches of flowers growing every couple of meters; young, trimmed trees lining up and down the road. It was amazing the difference a twenty minute bike ride could make, but there he was, standing for the fifth time in front of the building where Hongjoong lived in now, and he reached out his hand, just as hesitantly as he had the other times to press the buzzer that read _Kim_.

Except this time no reply came, so he waited and pressed the buzzer again, and again, and again. After the sixth time, he gave up and just stared at the big door, it was made out of glass and black steel, the handle was golden just like the number that was displayed above the door. Seonghwa looked at the other names displayed on the marble wall and decided to try his luck: he pressed one of the random names, _Choi_.

A reply came a couple of seconds later, it was a man’s voice.

“Hello?” he asked, he sounded sleepy and Seonghwa belatedly realized it was around 10pm. His voice came out distorted through the small speaker.

“Uh, sorry, I’m—” He hesitated and thought about a plausible excuse that could get him into the building so he could at least leave the notebook inside Hongjoong’s post box if he wasn’t home right now. Seonghwa cleared his throat and put on the voice he used when he was in the classroom. “My name is Seonghwa and I’m a tutor of Kim Hongjoong, he is currently working on graduating from university and I help him out with some of his classes. He forgot to take his notes so I came to deliver them, but it seems he isn’t home.” It was a good lie, but he couldn’t help the sweat that ran down his back, or the way his heart beat wildly in his chest.

He only had the courage to deliver the notebook in that instant, he wasn’t sure he could find his way back to Hongjoong’s place the next day. He wasn’t sure he would find the courage and the determination to come here again to pour his heart out.

“Seonghwa?” asked the man, his tone sounded strange, but Seonghwa couldn’t quite pinpoint why that was.

“Yeah, Seonghwa, I’m Hongjoong’s tutor and need to drop off—”

“Right. Sure, of course. Yes,” the man stuttered out and seconds later the main door buzzed open.

“Thank you.” Seonghwa pushed the door open and stepped inside the now familiar building, the hallway stretching out in front of him; the staircase by the back was submerged in darkness, and he searched the wall to find a light switch, he flicked it on and a dim light lit up the inside of the building, bathing it in yellow tones, making it look like he was in some movie from the fifties. Like the city lights had always made the gray city look warm.

“No problem,” the stranger said. “Please don’t hurt him. **”**

The door slammed shut and Seonghwa turned around startled, he stared at the speaker outside and wondered if he had imagined those last words or not. He decided not to waste any more time and sprinted up the familiar staircase towards Hongjoong’s door, foregoing the elevator. He felt too adrenaline filled and simultaneously on the brink of an anxiety attack, close to giving up on it all, call it quits and never see Hongjoong again; take that one sweet memory they had shared two weeks ago as a farewell gift and move on, move past his haunting past. But somewhere, _somewhere_ , there was a voice that was telling him to take this second chance, to create a second chance for _them_.

So he took two stairs at a time, gripping the notebook in his hand tightly, his breath coming out short and erratic. He had to do it, though, he needed to.

He _wanted_ to.

When he finally reached Hongjoong’s door, he placed a hand on the wall next to it, catching his breath, and, when his heart was back to beating at a regular speed, he kneeled down to put his notebook next to the door. He waited for a second, somehow expecting the door to open and Hongjoong to step out, but nothing happened and he just stared at the wooden door, his mind starting to scream at him. There were worries and doubts crashing suddenly, like waves during a stormy sea, brutal and nearly drowning him, but he didn’t retrieve the notebook, instead he forced himself to stand up and walk down the staircase, hesitantly and tiredly, the adrenaline leaving his body, ebbing out.

All the emotions he had felt in the past hour, ever since he had come up with the idea to give Hongjoong his notebook, that contained the notes he had taken of his thoughts over the years, suddenly left him, all too abruptly. It was as if someone had ripped out his capacity to feel and he was back to a slumber like feeling. _Numb_. Sedated after a high of emotions. It was his brain’s automatic reaction to anything that proved to be terrifying and a bit too much.

When he walked out of the apartment building, he bumped into someone that was trying to get inside, a short person, clad in a navy blue suit. Seonghwa was forcefully slammed back to reality as he detached himself from the stranger, going for a quick apology, but his eyes ever left the stranger’s doe eyes, the apology never leaving his mouth.

Instead he stood struck at the door’s trespass staring back into Jongho’s familiar eyes.

“Seonghwa?” the younger croaked out, swallowing thickly, eyes wide and filled with emotions, searching Seonghwa’s face frantically, like he was trying to verify and make sure it was the person he thought of.

“Jongho,” Seonghwa deadpanned, too startled, too thrown out of depth, too unstable to say anything else. He felt himself shake, all sounds around him gone and turning into white noise.

It was all proving to be a tad too much for Seonghwa. He knew he was seconds away from collapsing.

“Are you…?” Jongho tried to form a coherent sentence, to find the words, but there were none, he just kept stuttering out sounds, fingers flexing around where he had one hand still on the doorknob, the leather bag he had been holding in his other hand was now lying on the ground. “Seonghwa, when did you—Why are you here?”

They stood like two fishes gaping at each other, hardly believing the situation they found themselves in. It wasn’t just the suddenness of the moment, of running into each other after nearly six years of not seeing each other, not knowing if the other was still _alive_. But it was seeing how much Jongho had grown: out of the awkward haircut he had sported back then, which had hung messily in his face and had been way too long. His hair was now brushed away from his face and much shorter, it made his face appear sharper and more mature. He looked like a young man on his way to success, with his suit and leather bag.

Jongho looked grown up, nothing like the awkward teenager Seonghwa remembered, and that realization fucked him up more than he thought it would. Seeing his friend so changed and so _nothing_ like what he had been made Seonghwa wonder what he himself looked like now, if he looked different from the Seonghwa that had outed himself and fallen in love for the first time, or if he still came across as that same young man. He hoped not, but at the same time it put fear in him to distance himself from his past self, almost as if the more he grew up and strived away from it, the more he tried to hold on to it in some way, because he was scared that it would just disappear — like sand falling through his fingers.

As horrible as the happenings that summer had been, Seonghwa realized in that moment, as he stared into Jongho’s huge, starry eyes, that he didn't want his past to be different or disappear.

He swallowed, and a million feelings came breaking out, everything came crashing back from that summer, every single emotion came crashing to him, and he couldn’t do anything against the tsunami that hit him. He felt as if something shattered in him, a wall he had put around him, a box he had tried to fit himself into. An empty swimming pool, his words echoing back loudly and unfiltered.

Then he looked at Jongho, really looked at him. At this young man that had somehow ended up in the same city as Seonghwa, despite all odds, despite that they could have never seen each other again, he was _there._ And so was Hongjoong, and Mingi.

(And outside, out of Seonghwa and Jongho’s range of view, was Cassiopeia, up in the spring sky, Yunho undoubtedly in the constellation.)

“Jongho,” Seonghwa tried again, only managing to bring the name past his lips, his voice raspy and strained. “It’s _so good_ to see you.”

“You too.”

Jongho reached out his arms to bring them around Seonghwa, hugging him tightly, his hands clutching Seonghwa’s jacket as if he was scared this wasn’t real. Seonghwa returned the hug, the same sentiment behind the way he nuzzled his face into the younger’s shoulder. He had missed him so much.

He had missed what they all had shared that summer.

“Hey, you want to come up and drink a cup of tea or something?” Jongho offered when they pulled apart. “We could catch up.”

“Yes, I’d like that.”

Once they sat in Jongho’s kitchen, steaming cups of tea in front of them on the table, a strong smell of cinnamon mixed with something else, Seonghwa felt less emotional and let his eyes wander around the kitchen. On the fridge was a polaroid picture stuck to it with an elephant shaped magnet, on the picture was Jongho together with a young man, he had dyed silver hair, dimples, and cat like eyes. Both of them were smiling and holding up their hands in a peace sign.

“Your boyfriend?” Seonghwa inquired, nodding his head towards the picture.

“Oh, no.” Jongho laughed as he saw who Seonghwa meant. “That’s San, my friend and current flatmate,” he explained. Seonghwa only nodded and took a sip of his tea. “So how have you been? What are you doing here in the green city?” he asked, taking a sip of his own tea and leaning back into his chair, giving Seonghwa a curious look.

“I’m a teacher at high school.”

Jongho smiled wistfully. “That’s nice,” he commented. “Somewhere in another universe, you and Yunho would probably be coworkers.”

“Probably.” Seonghwa often had imagined that, how life would have been if the tragedy hadn’t hit. “What do you do?”

“I work at San and Hongjoong’s agency as an assistant hairstylist while I take online classes to finish my photography degree.”

“Oh.” He gripped his cup tightly at the mention of Hongjoong’s name. “How was it? Meeting Hongjoong again?"

“It wasn’t really the most comfortable reunion. We kinda avoided each other because… _You know_.” He shrugged noncommittally.

“Yeah, I know. I met Mingi last year and it took us a while to reconnect too.”

Jongho’s eyes widened at that, he carefully placed his cup on the table, his hands shaking. “Mingi is here?" he asked, his voice strained, and swallowed.

“They’ve been trying to find you. The numbers you left them, they’ve been searching for you ever since then. And they found you… Or well, where the numbers were supposed to lead. Mingi bumped into Hongjoong outside of the building some time ago,” he told Jongho, who looked torn, almost as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Mingi didn’t give up?”

“No.” Seonghwa shook his head. “You’re _still_ their best friend.”

“Can you give me their number?” Jongho asked, his eyes misty. Seonghwa nodded and pulled out his phone to scroll through his contacts until he found Mingi’s, then he passed Jongho the phone. “ _Fuck_ , I can’t believe we’re all here. It’s as if we were supposed to meet again.”

“I feel like that too. I don’t think it’s a coincidence we are all here _now_.”

Jongho opened his mouth to say something else, but the front door of the flat opened, and someone came in. It was the young man of the polaroid, Jongho’s flatmate, San. He walked into the kitchen and dropped a bag of grocery’s onto the kitchen counter.

He smiled politely at Seonghwa. “Last minute snack run,” he explained. His voice was strangely familiar. “My name is San, nice to meet you,” he introduced himself, reaching out his hand for Seonghwa to shake.

“I’m Seonghwa, and likewise.” He went to shake San’s hand, but San looked struck, mouth agape, and his hand went slack in Seonghwa’s.

“Seonghwa?” he repeated, eyes flitting over to Jongho’s before they came back to stop on Seonghwa. “Are you perhaps an old acquaintance of Hongjoong? Kim Hongjoong?” Seonghwa nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, really.” San looked torn for a split second. “You… You mean _a lot_ to him,” he added then.

Seonghwa didn’t reply to that and tried to school his expression into something, anything, so that he didn’t break out in tears right there. The night was proving to take a huge toll on him, emotionally, not that it was bad, necessarily, just a lot to handle at once. He needed his time, his space, to be back in his room and mediate over all the happenings.

The universe was throwing all of this at him and now it was his time to respond to it, but he didn’t want to do so without properly thinking about it and warming himself up to the thought of letting the past back in, completely, wholly and unfiltered.

Seonghwa walked through the cold and dark streets, overhead was the night sky, vacant of any stars as a thick cloud covered it, not letting the stars shine, but Seonghwa knew what he would see up there. He knew Cassiopeia was up there somewhere and he knew Yunho sat there, looking down at him, probably that gentle smile of his gracing his features. Seonghwa felt like sitting in his kitchen, beer in hand, lighting a cigarette, and talking to Yunho. But it wasn’t that time of the year to do so, yet.

Instead, when he entered his dark flat, placing his keys on the small table next to the door, he kicked off his boots, hanging his winter jacket on the coat hanger, and walked into his kitchen, pulling out one of his shoebox-functioned-into-treasure-boxes and rummaged through it until he found Wooyoung’s old phone number. He didn’t waste any time sitting down, not even bothering to turn on any lights, the lantern outside was enough illumination for that moment. Besides, he was still trapped inside that small bubble that his impromptu meeting with Jongho had caused, he didn’t want his bright kitchen light to ruin that.

He typed the number into his phone’s display, chest tightening. Seonghwa tried to imagine what the other would look like now, in his mid twenties; what his voice would sound like. Would his laughter still be the same, that high pitched, obnoxious one that infected everyone around him?

He swallowed all doubt and anxiety down, all the bad things that had happened in the past, there was no need that they had to keep stopping him anymore from walking forward, from reaching out and trying to find the people that once had made him feel like there was so much more to life.

He tapped the call button and pressed the phone against his ear, waiting. After a few rings the line connected. At first there was no sound, just breathing, but then the person on the other line finally talked.

“Seonghwa? Is that really you?” Wooyoung asked.

If they were going to let the past back in, each one of them, to heal and move forward properly, it wouldn’t be fair without Wooyoung there.

* * *

> _Dear Hongjoong,_
> 
> _I don’t know when you will read this. Maybe it’s seconds after I delivered it to you, maybe hours, maybe even days. I know that your tour is over, though, and you’re in town. I don’t want to seem pushy or chase you around, but it would mean a lot if you would give me one more chance to meet you so we can talk, for real this time._
> 
> _I would like it if you would give us one more chance._
> 
> _I’m not angry at you anymore, at first I was. But lately I started to wonder why you did what you did. I want to know your side of the story. The last time we met, it was clear to me that I still hold love for you and I know, with time, they can go away, because I no longer wonder ‘what if’. But I also know that if we give ourselves a second chance we could be, I know we can, so instead of leaving this behind as a ‘could have been’, we can actually turn that into reality._
> 
> _And I would like to. I know you still have feelings for me too._
> 
> _This notebook was given to my by my father when I was nineteen or twenty, but that summer when I met you for the first time, six years ago, that’s when I actually started to write in it. I would write down how I felt in the moment, what immediate thoughts I had about you and about our encounters, counting down from the last time I saw you._
> 
> _In all these years we spent being apart, I kept it up because it was my form to deal with the heartbreak, with what happened that summer. And I never found it within myself to stop thinking about it, about you, about us._
> 
> _But as I said it’s not a ‘what if’ anymore, it’s a ‘I want to, if you want to’._
> 
> _Yours truly,_
> 
> _Seonghwa_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!!! hope everyone is doing well these days💛💛
> 
> \- [twitter](https://twitter.com/hhhjoong) & [curiouscat](https://curiouscat.qa/mist_)
> 
> -jack💛

**Author's Note:**

> lmk what you think!!
> 
> -[twitter](https://twitter.com/hhhjoong)


End file.
